The Tubelight Clicks

Here I am, surrounded by the dull grey of the current weather, my sombre thoughts making me wish I could just crawl back to bed. I don’t know what it is about the rainy season but it makes me lovelorn and depressive. It makes me steel grey like the skies outside surrounded by cold loneliness, assaulted by precious silver tears as heavy as boulders that fall like the rain. I want it to to stop, but part of me likes it, makes me feel like I deserve it.

I wear two rings on my hand that finally felt like they belonged there. They’re both made of silver, one smooth and rounded and a perfect fit for my finger, one a bit larger and patterned. The smooth rounded one was a gift from someone I loved, a love that I still find hard to put away from my thoughts. I always thought that this love would put a ring on the very finger it rests on, not the one I wear now, alone.

I remember lying in his arms, talking  about finally seeing ourselves as one, one day wearing matching bands of precious metal. I told him that they had to be silver though. I always thought gold was a bit tacky, and that what we had was very different. He said okay. One day he’ll propose to me, he’ll give me a silver ring, and we’ll be together forever.

Those were from a happier time, where our love was just a matter of our own. Then things happened that made the matter something not of our own. We could have done things differently, stuck it out through the tough times, but I was made to choose between family, faith and love and for a kid, I was too young to know they were one in the same and that I chose wrong. We parted ways, never to see each other, never speak of what we had. But he was true to his word, he gave me a silver ring, a parting gift of sorts; a smooth and rounded ring, very simillar to a wedding band, cut with a cross that almost splits it in two. He was very thoughtful that way, giving me a bittersweet reminder of what my so called God did to us.

I kept the ring locked away for a few years too saddened to wear it, faced by the horrific reminder of my choices. I was ashamed of what I had done, and what that ring symbolized. Everytime my hand would come across it my little box of treasures, I’d sigh a sad sigh and slip it on for a few seconds wondering how things could’ve been different, how I could’ve been different, and everytime I did slip it on, I became a little different. Bit by bit, I became stronger, I became more confident, more assured and more determined to never have to make decisions I will regret, make decisions that will never hurt the ones I love, the ones I will love. The day I came out, I put the ring on and forever since then, it has been on my hand, a symbol of strength and love. And a little later on, I learnt that faith, family and love were the same thing, and what I once thought was a terrible symbol of what I lost became an affirmation of all the good I have gained.

Till last sunday, I would slip the ring on everytime I left the house, taking it off when I had some work that might damage or dirty it, or when I got back home. I wore the ring on my left ring finger, where it would be if I was still with him. People would joke or ask me why I had it and what it was, and I would tell them simply that it was a gift from my first love, and still is. It was my sunshine in a grey world, a reminder of the good times, the sunny smiles, the warm good things in my life, wishing that maybe one day, that it would be replaced by a real wedding band. But on sunday, I lost the ring. I remember it being on my finger, and with the whirl of activity that was my last sunday. I lost it. Gone. From memory and reality. I tried to find it for the past few days, but everytime I try and fail, it makes me feel worse.

I feel like the green lantern without his ring. Clichéd I know but simply put, it is what it is. The ring was what protected me from my own warring thoughts, my own self depreciation, the acid green envy when I met couples in love or childhood sweethearts. It was the secret ingredient to the elixir that was my happiness. And now, here I am, surrounded by weather far worse than my feelings of forlorn and greydom. And with Sad love songs.

Rainy days, rainy days,

now that you’ve gone far away,

my raindrops fallin’ down my eyes,

you know i’ll never be okay..

Thoughts fade away, fade away,

don’t you know i’m missing you,

here it slowly falls again,

every day and night,

as I open my eyes…