Females are taught that a man is supposed to first buy you a promise ring, then an engagement ring and lastly a wedding band. I remember when I was in high school, a promise ring was a huge trend. That “promise” meant different things for everyone. Some girls chose to wait to have sex until prom night or after they graduated, so the ring represented a promise from the guy that he would patiently wait. Another example would be a promise to be together forever. Even now, promise rings are still a trend it seems.
My high school sweetheart bought me several “promise” rings. They all meant different things. He probably bought me four or five of them of the course of three years.
Unfortunately, these so-called “promise” rings have only been filled with lies and empty promises. I have found this to be true not only for myself but for other females as well. It seems boys want to give you a promise ring just to shut us up because we want jewelry and that is an easy way to do it. There is rarely any meaning behind it. I say “boys” because that is what they are. Men would actually give you a ring and follow through with their promises.
I have been let down time after time by putting my happiness in someone else’s hands and trusting their “promises” which only left me empty and drained, simply because I trusted someone else when they promised to make me happy forever. I know lots of other females have made that same mistake because we want to believe all their kind words, but rarely do their actions line up with their words.
Last week I went on a vacation with one of my best friends. We went on a cruise to The Bahamas. Cruising is my happy place. Seriously. There is nothing more serene than being out in the middle of the ocean without cell phone service and not being able to see any land. Regardless what worries you have back at home, they no longer exist when you’re on that ship. You are completely disconnected from everything. Nothing matters except the present moment. It is in moments like those that I realize big the world is and how beautiful it really is. Why on earth would anyone be willing to put their happiness in someone else’s hands? There are so many ways that we can make ourselves happy without counting on someone else to do it. Hell, even if I was on a cruise ship alone I would still be in that happy place.
We sat there on the top deck enjoying our cocktails just watching the ocean waves. Of course, we had our typical female discussions of life. The purpose of this trip was to celebrate our 20 years of friendship and to celebrate her upcoming divorce. We have both had many heartbreaks throughout our years, unfortunately, lots of them were by the same man. We have both encountered the cheater, the liar, the narcissist and the controller. We have also had the man who neglects us, who is self-centered and refuses to put us first.
We had already planned that we would buy rings, but it was over the course of that discussion that we decided these rings would have a new meaning than just a memory of our trip or of our friendship. I decided that the rings we purchased needed to be a promise ring to ourselves. It is time that we, as females, stop letting men control our hearts and our minds. We need to stop counting on them to be there for us and it is time that we learn to be there for ourselves. The ring will represent a promise that we make to ourselves to not let any man half love us or put us down. We also made a promise to ourselves to love ourselves no matter what and to love ourselves enough to remove anyone from our life who did not recognize our worth. This is a promise that we both know that we can keep and a promise that will be fulfilled.
The ring we each bought has a stone in it called Mystic Topaz. The stone starts out as a natural colorless stone and it is heat treated which then causes it to have a rainbow effect, much like us. Too many men have put us through some heat and pressure which only has made us be better. This has allowed all of our colors to come through so we can really shine.
