What Should I do With My First Engagement Ring?

And other thoughts on nostalgia...

Hi! I’m Amy from LightWriter Media.⚡ I write about creativity, recovery and healing through storytelling. If you are new to this page, drop your email below to ensure you receive my posts. This publication relies on reader donations so, if it doesn’t cause you any financial hardship, consider paying $5.50 a month to receive all exclusive content (or $38 a year).

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Last week, as I was walking between the leisure centre and a cafe with my 3-year-old in her pram, I passed a cute little jewellery store—and it reminded me of something pressing on my to-do list.

For a while now, I’ve been thinking about doing something with my first engagement ring—the ring my ex-partner bought me four days after he was diagnosed with cancer, and nine month before he died, three weeks after our wedding.

I am not one to own objects that I don’t use or items that I don’t wear. I don’t save things for ‘best’ and I frequently go through my wardrobe to gift, donate or up-cycle garments. I have re-gifted most of the clothes from my days as a fashion magazine editor, swapped for the denim cut-offs and bikinis, which are the uniform of a south-coast mama/freelancer.

So, to have an engagement ring just sitting in a box feels… silly and unnecessary. Not to mention the fact, I don’t know the etiquette of where to store it now that 16 years has passed (fuck, 16!!!) and I’m remarried again. Joyfully and happily.

It has lived in my sock drawer.

It has lived in the old Tupperware box where I keep my $20 jewellery.

It has lived in the cardboard box where I keep a selection of my late-husband’s possessions.

At times, I have moved it to new places— and then forgotten that I put it there. Only to be shocked by that little ring box when I’m going through an old pencil case, and it jumps out at me like a spectre.

‘JEEZ! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?

But, now, as I hit my 40th year, I think it’s time to do something about it. And I don’t want that something to be “wait until my daughter is 18 and give it to her.” Call me selfish but this is part of my history—my echo—and it’s time to re-integrate all parts of myself and my memories.