The Claddagh Ring...

Let me explain a little Irish tradition: the Claddagh ring.

This ring, given by one who loves the wearer, has much meaning.  The little hands symbolize friendship, the crown is a symbol of loyalty, and the heart is a symbol of love.  Tradition holds that when the hand holds the heart pointing outward, towards others, the wearer's heart isn't taken.  When pointed inward, the wearer's heart is indeed spoken for. 

Just about everyone (including the men) on my mom's side of the family wears one of these rings.  I received mine on a snowy night in 1996: my 12th birthday.  My parents had taken me out to The House of Hughes for that special birthday, and gave me my Claddagh ring. 

For fourteen years I have worn that ring, the little hands holding the heart pointing towards the world, waiting (albeit guardedly) to give my heart away to one who would be worthy. 

Just a couple nights ago, I turned my ring around.  My heart is taken.  And, like my new ring position, it takes some getting used to.  It somehow feels both natural and foreign.  That little ring had molded to my finger and was comfortable where it had rested for so long, just as I had become comfortable in the singleness I'd lived for so long.  So now it fits strangely; the crown is bent upward just a bit, and it catches on my clothes.  I'm learning how to live with it, waiting for it to become just as comfortable as it had been, just as I am learning to live with this new relationship, waiting for it to become just as comfortable as my singleness had been.  Only, it's a much more enjoyable process than getting used to my ring's new position.

Funny.  Fourteen years ago, as I shoved the too-small gold ring onto my chubby right hand ring finger, I thought about the day I might turn it around.  Many times over the past fourteen years I've thought about the when and the where of turning that ring around, and especially the whom.  But never in those fourteen years did I anticipate the rich blessing, the great joy that would accompany such a seemingly insignificant event as turning a little gold ring around.  As I flipped the ring and slid it onto my now-slender right hand middle finger, I thought about all it meant and all it will mean... and maybe all that will occur in my life in the next fourteen years.

photo from flikr