The Ring Isn't a Signal, It's a Reminder

It was my last morning on Campobello Island in Canada. The fog sat so thick I couldn’t see the ocean from the road, which was maybe 100 yards away. I went out for a walk with my coffee, the way I had every morning on the trip. Salt was in the air. The air was cool. And somewhere on that walk, I started thinking about my wedding ring.

Not in a sappy way. More like a question I couldn’t put down. What is the origin of wedding rings? Were they meant to face outward, a signal to everyone else that someone is “taken”? Or was it meant to face inward, a reminder to the person of the promise they made?

The reason I was thinking about this is a couple of nights before I watched Legally Blonde with Becca and my mom. So much of that story runs on landing the guy who can buy the big diamond. The ring becomes proof. Look what I got. Look who chose me.

And culturally, it seems we tend to treat the ring like it’s for other people. Someone gets engaged and the first thing we say is, show me the ring. We want to see the size of it. The rock.

So, I got curious about where wedding rings even came from. The ancient Egyptians were among the first to use them. They saw the circle as a symbol of eternity, no beginning and no end, and they wore bands of woven reeds or leather as a sign of devotion. That’s the inward version. The love version. The Romans took the ring and turned it into something else. Their rings were often iron, and they were less about love and more about a claim. A public mark that a woman was spoken for and bound by contract. That’s the outward version. So, this tension I was feeling on a foggy morning in Canada isn’t new. It’s been sitting inside this little band of metal for thousands of years.

I looked down at my ring and thought, “What is this for?”

I actually didn’t want a wedding ring. I wanted to get a band tattooed on my finger. Becca said, no. At least wait a few years. Apparently, she was still kicking the tires...

After 14 years of marriage, I did get a tattoo. But not just one ring. I got 3. And not on my finger. On my shoulder.

I got Borromean rings. Borromean rings are 3 rings locked together in a way that’s hard to picture until you see it. Here’s the really cool part. No two of the rings are actually linked to each other. Pull any single ring away and the other two fall apart. All 3 only hold together because all 3 are there.

That’s why I chose them. One ring is Becca. One ring is me. One ring is us, the couple we make together. The tattoo reminds me of something I don’t want to forget. If we lose ourselves, if Becca stops being fully Becca or I stop being fully me, the whole thing weakens. The couple isn’t held together by giving ourselves up. It’s held together by both of us staying whole. Lose one ring and they all fall apart. Lose who we are as individuals, and we lose what we are together.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love my wedding ring. I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t feel like me without it on. And when I look down at my ring, I don’t see a signal to anybody. I see a reminder of the commitment Becca and I made to each other. To keep supporting each other. To keep making each other better. To keep growing together for as long as we get.

Once I started pulling on that thread, I realized the ring isn’t the only reminder I carry. There’s the nail polish I’ve written about before. That’s a reminder too. Don’t take yourself too seriously. Be the whole, weird person you actually are. I’ve been collecting these small reminders without fully noticing. Little things that pull me back toward how I want to move through the world.

Here’s why I think I need these little visible reminders in my life. When I got home from Costa Rica, something shifted in me. Down there I felt deeply relational. Present. Slow in a good way. Then I landed back in Maine, and my to-do list came roaring back. All the things I want to build. All the things I want to get done. And I could feel myself trading being for doing. I got sharp. On edge. When I’m deep in the doing, I can easily drift away from how I want to show up in the world. Leading from relationship, not productivity.

These reminders are simple ways to keep me in rhythm. To remind me of the person I am trying to be and trying to become.

So, here’s what I’m sitting with. What are the reminders in your life? The ring, the necklace, the tattoo, the purple hair, whatever it is for you. Are they there for other people to see? Or are they there to remind you who you want to be?

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