men and rings

Finally, I got to watch the extended DVD of Return of the King. On Christmas day itself. Whee. Plenty of additional scenes with yummylicious Faramir and his Hush Puppies eyes. Whee. Strangely enough, after trying to share my joy with my colleagues and some college friends... I discovered that none of them seem to be as smitten as I am (and the whole bunch of my church folks) with this fascinating trilogy about a group of men and a ring. How can it be? How can someone not catch the LOTR fever?

Men and rings. I have freaky experiences with the combination. Ex had this simple gold ring around his finger for as long as I could remember. His dad gave it to him as a reminder of what his priorities in life should be, of what he can or cannot do until the day the ring is replaced with a wedding ring. Very sweet and amusing, yes. And he did keep his side of the pact. I was proud but at the same time, jealous like hell. The ring, his precious, would be something I could never conquer. Sometimes, our of sheer boredom, I would take it out of his finger and toy around with the ring. He'd quickly demand it back. He felt naked without the ring. I felt crestfallen to be playing second fiddle to Gollum's precious. When I had to let him go, the ring haunted me for a long time. The ghost of the thought of never being the one to replace his ring with something of our own scalded like a branding iron. One that brought forth tears and fears for months.

Current has a ring too. A simple gold one. Deja vu. I have thousands and millions of questions but I dare not ask. Most probably it was from a previous relationship. I don't like it at all. The look of it, the feel of it when we hold hands. Bad memories, doubts and insecurity seep right through between the tightly clasped flesh. I see it as a sign of unreadiness, of unwillingness to totally let go of the past. And I don't think I can survive being with someone with the upper torso stuck in a time machine heading towards 1997 and lower body heading towards 2005.

Maybe I'm just being paranoid. But I know I have enough of my share of men and simple, unengraved gold rings. You can't blame me for being oversensitive. Blame it on the LOTR trilogy.