A few years ago, someone gave me a ring.

It was not the ring, an engagement ring, but a small silver ring with tiny diamonds across the top of the band. It was a remarkable gift in many ways. There was the giver of the gift, who meant a lot to me at the time. There was also the fact that I never bought jewelry for myself ever except some dinky earrings at Claire’s in high school. I still don’t. I guess I never think to spend that kind of money on myself.

Also, it has to be said that my family has never been great gift givers. When I get things that I like or that I want, it’s usually because I had to specifically mention them. We spend time, we are good at cooking dinner and laughing and talking and debating and hugging and crying. We don’t really make a big show of gifts and so it’s a special, rare thing when someone gets me something perfect, something that I would’ve picked out for myself if given the chance.

A few days before I received this ring, I was at my very first NYC audition. I was very naive and full of hope and I waited eight hours to be seen. Around 2 pm, I was waiting in the hallway with a group of older girls, who couldn’t have been older than the age I am now. One of the girls lived in Westchester and she made a big point of saying this, Westchester, noting that she would never live in the city, there’s not enough trees. She spoke loudly to her friends about how young the girls at the audition were and how they didn’t know anything because my God, how old could they be? 21? 22? Don’t you remember what it’s like to be that young?! My God, these girls are BABIES.

I envied this girl though I saw right through her insecurities. She seemed to know everything. I watched her hands move animatedly as she talked, two tiny rings with diamonds across the bands, sparkling in the light. Someone asked her about them and she mentioned how she had found them, some great deal at a department store. And it was shocking to me then to realize that girls could have money, that kind of money (she spent $200 on each of them! Imagine that!) and spend it on themselves. I never had money that way.

Incidentally, I remember getting the chance to finally sing at 5:10 PM, after arriving at the audition studio at 6:30 AM and how no one looked up from the table and no one cared. And that was the first time I realized that it was all going to be harder than I originally thought.

Later that week, I went to go visit my boyfriend for Valentine’s Day and he presented me a box, with a ring inside it. I couldn’t stop crying when I saw it because I never told anybody, not even him, about the girl in the hallway and how badly I wanted a ring like that. And he had known, somehow. Someone in my life had understood me and paid attention to me and had given me a gift that I didn’t have to ask for.

On Wednesday, I took a shower after my workout at the gym and I took that ring off to apply some lotion. I put it down on a bench near my clothes in the locker room. And I forgot to put it back on.

I realized this around 2 AM on Wednesday morning, shortly after publishing my last post here. I didn’t fall asleep until 5:30, tossing and turning about it and some other things I couldn’t get off my mind. I woke up at 8 AM for work, delirious, eyes burning. I went straight back to the gym and inquired and begged and everyone told me what I already knew: it was gone.

That same day, I found out that callback phonecalls were made for a certain show I had gone in for a few days before. The audition, for me, had gone so well. They seemed so interested, I sang a few songs, the director worked with me a bit. I left feeling secure and proud and everybody reassured me, telling me “You are getting so close! So much closer to finally getting something!” And I knew it. I waltzed back to work from that audition, light as air.

And that phonecall never came. It did for other people, but not me.

I could’ve cried at any moment on Thursday, from the exhaustion, from the stress, from the anger I was feeling at myself for the audition, for the lost ring. But I kept it down.

I went to yoga on my lunch break.

I came home and made vegan pizza.

And while I was kneading the pizza dough, standing besides my roommate in the kitchen. It came bubbling up and I could no longer keep it in. I slid to the kitchen floor, sobbing uncontrollably, feeling like a failure, like a forgetful person, like someone who was never going to book a show again and who was certainly never going to be loved enough to be entrusted with another ring. Or another heart.

It’s odd to tell you that I’m still reeling from Thursday. I think some of it is the way my hormones are causing me to sink into a low depression once again. But I just wanted to post this because I’m feeling rather blue. And a week before my birthday, I’d rather not feel this way.

I want to post this because one day, when I find The Ring and when I book That Show, I will want to re-read this and remember to be grateful. As sure as I am that I want to keep going and want to keep trying, I would be lying if I said that the constant rejection never causes me tears or pricks away at my heart or that there are never days when I want to give up. There are so many days like that. I hope they end soon.