Selling the bling

This past weekend, I took my engagement ring back to the store where Glenn bought it so that the nice people there could appraise it and tell me how much they'd give me for it. There is nothing about this process that makes me happy, not even the thought of several thousand dollars in my pocket, not just because it's dirty money in my mind, but because this is not something I want to be doing. At all. But I can't have that ring in my life anymore. Not in my life includes not putting it in a safe deposit box or having the stones reset so they can have a second life as a necklace or earrings.

Let me just say that I love my engagement ring. I wasn't one of those obnoxious brides from The Knot who flashed her bling for anyone with a camera, but I did find myself getting distracted at work a lot. I'd be typing away and suddenly notice how nicely the light from my computer screen refracted in the diamonds that just happened to be living on my left hand. Anyone who has ever been engaged knows how that goes.

We chose the ring together. Glenn insisted on the right to decide which ring to buy--he was old fashioned in his own ways--so we went to the store together ( a really nice antique jewelry store on Newbury St.) and I picked three that I loved. I would have been happy with any one of them, but secretly I loved this ring. Every night before bed he'd ask me which one I liked best and I refused to tell him, but in my heart of hearts I really wanted that one. Who wouldn't? It's an estate piece from the 1920s, with a center mine-cut stone and three smaller stones on each side in a platinum setting. Beautiful, classic and understated without being boring. Everything I'd ever dreamed of in an engagement ring.

The day we got engaged is still one of the happiest days of my life. I remember feeling intense, pure joy, the kind that people keep trying to get from club drugs or vibrators or weeks at the spa. I wore that ring for a year and a half, and when we broke up I gave it back to him. It was the only thing to do--even then I didnt' want it anymore. When I fled back to Boston, my mother had a hissyfit when she found out I'd given it back, and I couldn't make her understand that I felt like a fraud with that ring in my life now that Glenn was no longer my fiance. Then, when I went back to LA to pack my things, I turned on my computer and found a file full of letters and emails from Glenn to the girl that he cheated on me with. ON MY COMPUTER--right on the desktop, where only someone who wanted something to be found would leave them. And in a fit of righteous anger, indignation and a complete, numbing sense of betrayal, I cut the strings on his guitar, popped the tires on his beloved mountain bike and took the ring back.

For the past 8 months, it's been sitting in a drawer, safe in its little black velvet box. On Saturday, I took it back to the store on Newbury St. The owner, Shelley, was very nice and extremely professional. She said they would be happy to discuss either consigning the ring or buying it outright, but first they needed the original sales receipt and a letter from Glenn giving me permission to sell the ring. Apparently the store got caught in the middle of not one but several very nasty breakups that involved one spouse calling the police in order to stop the other from sellling the engagement ring. So now I need to demonstrate Glenn's good will in the matter in order to move forward. Oh the irony.

Shelley remembered Glenn and I got a distinct vibe from her that she thought the breakup was somehow my fault. Glenn is a very charming guy and I'm sure he made a great impression with them when he bought the ring. But now I'm wondering how I can drop the fact that our relationship ended because he was a cheating bastard somewhere into the conversation. So now I'm waiting for the receipt and the letter, both of which he kindly agreed to send. In the annals of things that are fucked up, calling your ex-fiance to get permission to sell the ring he gave you has to fall somewhere within the top 100.

It's been 8 months and my heart is still broken.