You might be thinking by the title of this article what in the world is she referring to? Well, let me tell you a short story that became a major life lesson for me.
For as long as I can remember, I have always had an unbreakable, everlasting bond with my grandmother. Having been literally inseparable from her since very little, I would spend most of my time as a toddler living in the Dominican Republic, where I am from, at her and my grandfather’s home. It was my second home. And what do toddlers so often do? They get curious and inspect everything they find that might seem interesting. This is how this story starts: playing with my grandmother’s jewelry as often as I did, I became enamored with a specific object… her emerald ring. This ring was silver with tiny emerald studs wrapped all around it. It was simple, but to me, it was something else. When I asked my grandmother where she got her ring from, she would tell me that she had received it as a gift. A gift from someone in the family that had been on a cruise to Cartagena, Colombia where it was bought.
I became super attached to the ring and would always look for it in my grandparent’s bedroom. My grandmother made me the promise that her ring would be waiting for me when I was older. That day of me being “older” and “old enough” to receive the ring for myself seemed so far away, almost as far away as in another life. But eventually when I turned seventeen years old, that day did arrive.
Fast-forward to two years after my grandmother had first given me her ring. One afternoon, I went out wearing it. A few hours after having returned home, I realized that the ring was not in the usual spot where I would place it after taking off all my jewelry. I had no idea how or at what point during that day the ring came off my finger. Maybe I unconsciously took it off while I was out? Impossible. Maybe I came back home, took it off, and placed it in a random place? I could not believe it. I looked and looked everywhere and could not even find the words to tell my grandmother what had happened.
This ring was completely and utterly irreplaceable to me. It was something that little me loved with all of her heart since the very first time she found it, peeking around through my grandmother’s things. At the same time, it also represented something more to me – growing up and being that older version of myself that I would imagine when I was only in kindergarten. The ring was also something so meaningful connecting me to my grandmother forever, like in a family heirloom type of way. And when that time came for me to actually own the ring, I wore it on my pointer finger on my right hand for many memorable occasions.
After endless searching for the ring, I was inconsolable, and my mom then told me that “objects do not get lost, they are misplaced.” Hearing this did not bring the ring back to me. But it did make me feel better because in a way it was reassuring in that “it’s okay. It’s not lost, it’s just misplaced.” As in, I didn’t “accidentally lose it”, it was maybe meant to stay someplace else. It does not have that strong and negative connotation that oftentimes comes with “losing” something. From that point on, after having this mini epiphany, I never “lose” anything . If I am ever unable to find something, I simply declare it (lol) as being misplaced and free it into the Universe. And many times, after doing this, the thing that is “misplaced” usually comes back to me in one way or another. As you may be able to see, this is also a practice on letting go.
Viewing the situation from the perspective of “misplaced” instead of “lost” has brought me clarity, yet, to this day, I still sometimes look for my ring. Underneath my bed, inside all of my purses and all of their pockets, wallets – anywhere I think it could have ended up with the silent hope of finding it and going “so that’s where it was!” However, as I mentioned, in the end, this is all about learning how to let go.
I know that I will always keep the ring within me in my heart, along with the meaning I attached to it, and the years of me being little that led up to having it as part of my most valuable belongings.
This experience has taught me that material, physical objects do not get lost. They are simply misplaced somewhere out there in the world.