The Necklace

That Spring, I had a beautiful idea; I conceived something specifically for her. Something that would make a difference, surely.

I started half a year ahead of Christmas, sourced a 5 carat gem from a Tanzanian mine, designed a concept, worked to get it shaped into a heart, navigated getting it out of the country with a few bribes, and ultimately produced this singular object of beauty for her.

And she still doesn’t love it. Or me.

The Christmas Necklace was an attempt to make it me again.

I was still trying to produce the thing that might cause her to turn toward me:

Look what I found for you. Look what I made happen. Look how much thought I put into you. Surely this communicates something. Surely this lands. Surely this makes you feel loved. Surely this gets through.

But it didn’t.

Then another iteration. Another experience. Another project. Another attempt to find the right output that would produce the missing response.

That’s why the bargaining thoughts come to me in the quiet moments of my sleepless nights - maybe I could capitulate/agree/beg and make it me again - deserve to be confronted with The Christmas Necklace.

Because I already tried extraordinary output as a route back to being wanted.

The vacations weren’t sufficient.

Providing more wasn’t sufficient.

Solving more wasn’t sufficient.

The house wasn’t sufficient.

The Christmas Necklace wasn’t sufficient.

She wasn’t obligated to respond to a 5-carat tanzanite necklace with some prescribed emotional result. That’s actually the point: there was no reliable transaction available whereby I could do something and cause her to feel that way about me again.

Which makes today’s desire to bargain under grief so dangerous:

Maybe this time the required action is just bigger. Maybe I can just try to ignore my objections. Maybe I can just be gone more. Maybe if I just do one more thing.

But the desired result is still exactly the same:

Please make me the person you’re happy to see again.

And she cannot promise me that outcome.

And so it is with The Christmas Necklace. It is literally a heart that came from ridiculous lengths to extract from the earth to be put around her neck.

And it stays out of sight, unloved.

As I am today.