Ding a Ring

I'm a little fuzzy on the details, actually, of how I managed to get this ring. I know we were out in a group (because that's what cool freshmen [were we sophmores actually...?] do) when I found this simple band that's actually small enough to fit me, or at least my middle finger. Anthony gets it for me...I think...maybe...all I know is that I didn't pay for it.

In the years to follow, this ring would only leave my finger for long on two occasions: to be worn by what I like to refer to as "the-bad-college-freshman-decision-we-all-make" and when I start working in the hospital and get hammered into my head that jewelry is a hornet's nest-worth of germs and bacteria just waiting to passed around regardless of how clean I scrubbed my hands if the irritation rashes on the backs of my palms are any indication...

My ring has become a staple in my life to the point that I get genuinely confused when I look down at my left hand and realize that it's not there at work. Over the years, I've managed to scratch it on just about any surface you can think of: a flame-proof black top of a lab table, the counter at Tiff and Brittney's (haunted) apartment while I watched them attempt to make Shake-and-Bake dinner, the handles of weight-machines at the gym. I've actually once dropped it into a toilet and reached in without even thinking: that's how much I treasure this thing. Which is funny, considering that on one particularly emo day in college I nearly chucked it into a lake beside a beautiful chapel in a fit of justifiable, though very misplaced, rage.

It kind of shows, then, how we mark the things that are precious to us...and judging from the callus right beneath my middle finger in my palm and the tan line you can't see unless I take it off, I guess it's kinda marked me too?