Innocence for sale

I tried to sell my innocence today.

I fell in love when I was 18. Holly and I worked in the remote corner of a baseball stadium parking lot. For hours a day at least two weeks a month for a summer, we were alone with no one to talk with but one another. But for part of that summer she left for a church mission trip to Brazil. It was only while she was gone that I realized I felt more than friendship. When she returned, I couldn't wait to tell her.

That Christmas she gave me a silver ring with inlays of pearl and turquoise. And I vividly remembered her asking me to share something special with her. She took me to a little chapel off to the side of the big church and sang Happy Birthday to Jesus with just she and I. It was a simple, sweet gesture.

Being who I was then - and who I would remain for decades to come unluckily - she and I would never cut it. I was in no way ready to love someone because I had such trouble loving myself.

But after all those decades, I still have that ring. Thinking myself overly sentimental and unwilling to let go of the past, I decided to sell the ring to one of those precious metal buyers.

On the drive over, I pondered the ring in my pocket. Was it really a Rickie/Holly ring? Or was it anything else? I pulled it out and looked at its tarnished finish. I thought of how I had grown since that time and it would no longer fit on the intended finger. But I placed it on a smaller finger just to see if it belonged there. It probably didn't in terms of current fashionability. But there was a flash of how it maybe did in terms of Rickie.

I handed the girl making the bid the ring with a stated trepidation. The minute it left my hand, I knew. It wasn't about any past relationship or state of emotion. It was a symbol of the struggling threads of innocence in what has become a too cynical heart. It was the core of what was now under a lot of armor and history and experience. I had handed her not only what I used to be, but what I was once brave enough to be.

I needed to be sure it wasn't what I needed to be. I couldn't do that taking a few dollars for the metal value. I needed to have a substantial, solid image of my innocence, even if that innocence had waned.

I kept the ring. I just put it back in the not very secure, not very preserving place I'd found it. But I hung on to it, even in that rather cavalier way. Even if it's off to the side in a spot with little honor, at least I know it's still there.