All gone

I love reality. I mean, really love it. Obsessed about it. It's funny because when the reality tv craze first started I thought it was dumb. Who would want to watch reality when you could watch The Cosby Show? But that all changed when Survivor came out 9 years ago. Seriously. 18 seasons over 9 years and I have watched every single one. One could say that my adult life has peaked with the premieres and finales of this show. Not really but it sounds good.

Stuart and I were watching the finale of season 18 on Sunday when he looked at my ankle and promptly commanded me to take my anklet off.

Gasp!

"Do what?"

"Take it off."

"But I have had it for years."

"Who gave it to you?"

{silence}

Do you remember in middle school when everyone made anklets out of their mother's thread and wore them for like two weeks and kept adding more and more anklets from friends until everyone's anklets started to resemble socks? I was so one of those girls. I thought anklets were beyond cool and seeing that high school girls wore them too, well that just did me in. I HAD to wear them. And so I did.

My freshman year I started dating this guy from church. Well, kinda from church. Someone in the youth group had invited him to come and then he started coming to church on a regular basis. That's neither here nor there. BUT his father was a professional Santa Claus. For real. His full time job was to actually BE Santa Claus. Amazingly he really does look like the man. So much so that one professional photographer uses him exclusively for pictures before Christmas. He also taught driver's ed where I learned that before you take off, you should check to make sure that the parking brake is not engaged. Ahem.

So this boyfriend of mine, who was a junior!, noticed that I was wearing ratty, knotted threads as anklets. For Christmas he gave me a new one. It was quite sweet actually. He went to James Avery, again because he noted the ridiculous amount of jewelry that I have from that store, searching for an anklet. Unfortunately they don't actually make anklets. But he was not leaving without one. Somehow he or the nice store worker (probably a woman) came up with the idea of turning a larger bracelet into an anklet. Viola! The finishing touch was a heart charm with "S&C" engraved into it. Kinda funny foreshadowing...

When we broke up a few months later, I still wanted to wear the anklet. I mean it was sterling silver and from James Avery but I didn't want to display the heart with our initials. I mean, come on! We were in high school! No one should profess their likeness to one other thru engraved initials.

[Some people do find their soul mate in high school. And if that was you, then congratulations! Please, by all means, engrave everything you own with your initials. And then post pictures of all your stuff. Really. I want to see this. I just wasn't that person. After by brief encounter with S (not Stuart), I went on a 3 year dating relationship with G. I honestly thought this was the man I was going to spend my life with. And why not? We had met at church camp. We started dating the summer before our sophomore year. My life revolved around his football schedule. We dated for 3 years. This was it! Wrong. Shortly after graduating we broke up because we were going to different colleges. Different colleges. Are you kidding me? We had been dating for 3 years. Of course a measly couple hundred miles couldn't separate our love. Right? And thus began my year long attempt at getting us back together. Thank goodness that didn't happen!]

So I did the only humane thing: I cut off the heart charm. With scissors. It's amazing how easy it was to do this. Makes me want to go and reinforce all the charms on my charm bracelet.

That was 14 years ago.

Holy Montana.

14 years ago.

Give me a moment here to recognize how old I really am for being able to not only make that statement but also know that 14 years ago I wasn't a baby but actually in high school. Dating boys. Riding in cars with boys.

I digress. Again.

You can see now that this anklet has been part of me for a long, long time. It has only been taken off a hand full of times for surgeries and x-rays. I honestly don't even think about it. It's there. My trusty little anklet. It obviously holds not significance to the boy that gave it to me. It's just been part of me for 14 years.

Apparently Stuart didn't see my anklet in the same light that I did. I'm not even sure he knew who gave it to me. I think he thought it was from J. Hardly.

Either way, he wanted for me to take it off. And as we were sitting there bidding adieu to another fantastic season of Survivor, I did just that. I took it off for that last time and threw it away. And now it's all gone.