Seriously, y'all. I felt like I was for like, 30 hours. It was simultaneously the absolute worst and absolute best 30 hours of my life. FOR REAL. I am just now able to process everything that went down, 5 days later.
The beginning of said time frame was Sunday morning at about 11am. That was when I looked down at my hand and noticed I didn't have my ring on anymore.
GASP! HORROR! DEVASTATION!
I know...I felt it all. I had lost my engagement ring.
Let's back it up, though, shall we? One of my good friends from college got married on Saturday night. She was in my sorority, so a bunch of my sorority sisters were going to be there, as well. And a lot of us hadn't seen each other in like, years. Which - durr - means we were all pretty pumped for the weekend and knew that we would likely end up good and toasted at the end of Saturday.
After the wedding reception, we said goodbye to the bride and new husband, and made our way back to the hotel where all 20something of us were staying. Everyone thought the hot tub sounded like a grand idea ("We're all together again! It's like we're in a HOT TUB TIME MACHINE!"), so out we went. I sat on the side and put my feet in, and a bottle of rum followed by a bottle of diet coke was passed around. Sometime either before or during the hot tub escapade, I made the conscious decision to take my ring off and put it SOMEWHERE, probably so it wouldn't fall off and be lost forever in the water. The resulting problem here was 2-fold:
a) I was smashed, which means I had no recollection of this so-called "responsible" move.
b) I didn't tell ANYONE where I stashed the bling. No witnesses. Sigh.
Back to 11am - panic ensues. I am trying to keep my shit together while running back and forth from my car ("check your trunk!") to the hotel room that 5 of us had shared, so yeah, it was kind of a wreck. I will tell you this, though, as if it hadn't been proven to me millions of time already in the past 8 years: I HAVE THE BEST FRIENDS IN THE WORLD. Here we all are, 11am on a Sunday, hungover as hell, cursing the universe for the time change, and they are 100% there for me. Sarah was wading in the hot tub, Niki was battling with the maintenance man to try to turn off the jets in said hot tub, Jessie is talking to management, and Megan was with me in the room, turning over mattresses. After we realized we just weren't going to find it, they stood with me and stroked my hair and rubbed my back and hugged my legs while I stood by the pool, called SK, and sobbed hysterically into the phone about how irresponsible I felt and how sorry I was.
And you know what that sucker says?
"Cheryl, it's ok."
It's OK?!?! How was this possibly OK? I straight up LOST my engagement ring!! The ring HE picked out. The ring HE loved before me. The ring he TRUSTED me NOT to lose.
"It's ok...don't cry. I'll just make you a twist-tie ring with a bead on it, until we can replace it."
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I am marrying this man. In my worst moment, the time when I felt awful and shitty, and in the moment he really would have been completely justified in just hanging up the phone and not dealing with it, he forgives me and makes me laugh.
Sarah and I returned to Houston after that, and after feeling like I was going to puke for 3 and half hours, I was finally back at home and once again sobbing, but this time in SK's arms. By Monday morning, I had accepted that it was really gone and spent a lot of the day figuring out how the hell we were going to come up with the cash to get a new one.
And then...
...after moving money from our emergency account, working up a plan for the evening and feeling like I was going to puke AGAIN for most of the day, I get a call from Sarah.
"IFOUNDITIFOUNDITFOUNDITIFOUNDOHMYGODOHMYGOD!! ITWASINMYBAGYOUHIDITINMYBAG!!! IFOUNDITIFOUNDITIFOUNDIT!!!!"
After my ears stopped ringing and she took a breath and was able to tell me what the hell was going on - THAT MY RING WAS HIDDEN IN HER BAG!! - I dissolved into tears again. I cried more in those 30 hours than I have in my whole life, y'all.
I cannot explain to you how amazing I felt after that phone call. I felt like a massive weight had been lifted from my shoulders and I was so so so happy. It might seem like something small to be so upset about, but really, it was a terrible feeling so when she called and said that I had been a drunk asshole and put the ring in HER bag - still no idea why on that one - I was so relieved.
The sucker hasn't left my finger since.
My wedding shower and then our Stock the Bar party are both tomorrow, and I am so pumped! It feels like the wedding is actually happening, now that we get to do things to celebrate it with our friends. Needless to say, I am pretty stoked I get to start all the celebrating off by not having to answer the question, "where is your ring?" 47billion times this weekend.
