Thanks St. Anthony

I FOUND MY RING I FOUND MY RING I FOUND MY RING!!!

Where on EARTH was it? Well, here's the full story:

As you may or may not know, I lost the ring that Jay gave me two weeks ago to this day. I've been absolutely devastated and massively, embarrassingly emo about it. I've been looking and re-looking everywhere, every day. I knew that it was in my room somewhere, but it was nowhere to be found at all. The bare basics are I had it on my desk right before I went to bed. I had moved my lamp onto the ground the night before and when I woke up early that Thursday morning, I moved my lamp back onto my desk and knocked into the ring. I didn't know what fell - I just heard a noise of something hitting the ground - and when I went to put it on a few hours later, realized that's what had fallen. I had looked at the ground at the time it fell, but didn't see anything and was so in need of coffee and a good morning urination that I didn't even bother to look at the time.

When I realized what had fallen, I freaked out hard core. I couldn't find it ANYWHERE that morning. My dad was still home and he helped me look and finally, I was late to work and had to halt the search til that evening. No luck. The next day, Friday Sept 12, I had to go to my grandparents' house in Syosset to spend the night because I was driving to LaGuardia Airport early early the next morning to go to Raleigh to visit Jay. I'm not gonna lie: I seriously was on the verge of having a breakdown those few days because I was just so upset. I returned home from Raleigh relaxed and hopeful that I'd find it. But still no luck. We looked EVERYWHERE. In the sheets, in the bed frame, through the garbage (Friday was a garbage day and my mom had dumped all of the garbage from our rooms into the main trash can outside that morning), in everything under my bed, in the lamp, in every drawer - open or closed at the time - , in my closet, through every shoe, in the wall, in the pipes, in the radiator, everywhere. I'm way anal and I need to put all of my clothes away before I go to bed every night, so although there were no clothing with pockets out at the time, we still looked anyway.

Then there were a few things that I guess put this into motion from the Universe.

Last night, as I went to bed, I moved my lamp again (I've been re-creating it every morning with no luck - I'm seriously fucking crazy) and had the idea to look inside it once again. But it was on and really hot from the light bulb and it was late, so I made a mental note to look this morning. Last week - circa last Wednesday or Thursday - I declared my hatred for this lamp, which was my mom's when she was a kid & I've had forever. I think I even tried to punch it. It's a nice, ceramic lamp with roses painted on it. I even swore about 82 times that I hated looking at it, hated it, wanted it gone from my room because I blamed it for knocking my ring into oblivion.

Prior to this thought, I was doing my usual masochistic moping and decided to search on eBay for the same ring. I found it here and told Jay about it. Because it was like $50 at the time - and white gold (mine is sterling silver) - he offered to get me this one as a replacement. I decided against it, then changed my mind, then decided against it again, then changed my mind. Finally, I decided against it before we went to bed. He was wonderful as usual and said that he'd do it anyway if it didn't get crazy expensive.

So this morning, I decided to search through my parents room and then the laundry room. My sheets had been moved to the laundry room that morning that my ring was lost, before I realized it was gone. My mom, who along with my dad, has been incredibly helpful and tolerant these past few weeks, had brought the sheets upstairs to her room and carefully laid them out on her own bed in order to see if the ring was stuck there. Since probably the Monday I got back from Raleigh (Sept 15) & couldn't find it, I've been desperately thinking of places it could have been. So this morning, I looked in their room just in case it had fallen there without her noticing and I moved the washing machine and looked through it, just in case it had fallen there.

I had no luck and then I basically had an emotional breakdown. I mean, I was sobbing in the shower and on the way to work. I was talking to Jay about how it was gone and he, as my parents and grandma have maintained, said that I had to have faith and believe I'd find it. I just had a complete panic attack over it and couldn't breathe and totally lost it in a way that I hadn't before. I guess I just completely lost hope at that point. He again offered to get the white gold version of the ring on eBay and I freaked out more, saying how it wasn't mine, I wanted MINE back, I couldn't wear one that belonged to someone else. He managed to convince me that once he gave it to me, it would become mine and it would be okay. We agreed that if it stayed under $100, he would get it. He made a bid with 10 minutes left for $100 right before he went to make a presentation in class (thank you Steve Jobs for inventing the iTouch), but someone outbid him for $102 at the last minute. He was disappointed that he didn't win it, but I was for the first time, very calm about it.

Maybe it was thanks to all the crying this morning or maybe it was because I had some sense of faith finally, but I realized when I went on break and he told me how sad he was that he didn't win it that it just wasn't meant to be. I knew then that if he didn't win it, then it wasn't meant to be. And the reason it wasn't meant to be was because I'd eventually find it. That was the first time in two weeks that I came to some kind of acceptance about it possibly being gone for a long time. I still looked this evening when I got home, as I have done for the last 2 weeks, but I didn't freak out or cry at all.

I was sitting here around 11pm and saw that the top of my lamp was slightly off. Now, I've noticed this every night for the last week since I tried to take it out behind the bleachers, but been too "fuck you, lamp" to really do anything about fixing it. But when I looked at it tonight, I remembered how I wanted to search inside it again. So I looked in and saw something. It didn't look out of the ordinary, but I figured I had to fix it because it IS an old, nice lamp and I should act 24-years-old and fix it. I took the cover off and saw that this thing in there wasn't gold, like the trim of the lamp, but silver. So I took it apart further and guess what?!?!?!?!?! I knew a split second before my hand met it, but still couldn't believe it til I saw it. That's why it wouldn't fit back in the correct way last week!!

YAY!!!!!

I promptly started screaming with glee (isn't glee a great word) and danced around my house until my parents and Katelyn told me to shut up so they could go to bed. Thank you to everyone who put up with all of my incredibly emo and borderline breakdown-like behavior and texts and Twitters about this ring. Naturally, I haven't taken it off since I found it lol.

And you know what? I swear it doesn't even feel like I ever went 14 days without wearing it.

Pictures to explain. I think if you click on them, they'll enlarge: