The Power of a Little Epoxy

And Some Stubbornness

I haven’t written on Substack before, so here goes.

I’m a wife and a mom. For the past 8 years I have run my very-part-time photography business but I am in the process of shutting it down. Fingers crossed, I will be starting gainful part-time employment in the next couple of weeks.

I’m a mental health consumer, a new member of the “I no longer have a uterus” club, and I sometimes don’t have all my shit together. Maybe that’s most of the time. I mostly walk around pretending to have my shit together. Sometimes, I don’t even pretend.

But being a new member of the “I no longer have a uterus (or ovaries)” club, I think life is going to get a lot better. My moods are better in general, for one. And, hello, no more monthly bleeding! No more worrying about babies.

And the worrying about babies thing is ridiculous, because I actually had my tubes tied when my youngest was born. And just for extra security, I had my husband have the snip snip too because our third baby was actually a “surprise!” baby. If you’ve never had a “surprise” baby, well…..let’s just say, it’s a “surprise!”

I’m in the process of trying to rediscover myself as a morning person. The problem with that is my husband is a night person. So while I am ready to go to bed by about 8:30 or 9 pm, his brain is just finally waking up for the day and ready to get going. I like to be up by 4:30 or 5 and on a day that he doesn’t have to be at work, he would rather sleep in until 11 or so. I’m learning to be okay with the time we spend together and to also appreciate my morning-time solitude.

When I’m not trying to be a morning person or do laundry (we do LOTS of laundry in this household)…. I am coming up with harebrained schemes.

This weekend’s scheme was that on Saturday, I decided that I wanted to have the ring enhancer wrap my husband gave me for our 10th anniversary unsoldered from the engagement ring. The engagement ring wasn’t the original setting, but it was the original stone. My husband had very generously upgraded my solitaire for our 20th anniversary in the Spring, and since then I’ve worn it with my band on my left hand. This weekend I decided I wanted to wear it with the 10th anniversary wrap and the band.

So, I took it to a Quick Fix in the mall this weekend, thinking unsoldering wouldn’t be THAT expensive. But, they didn’t want to talk about just unsoldering at all. They saw that the shanks in the anniversary wrap are slightly worn (there’s plenty of life still there) and they wanted to charge me EIGHT HUNDRED DOLLARS to replace both shanks. I said thank you, no, and left.

But I was determined.

So, I came home, and I thought about it. And at first I started digging just to see if I could pry them apart with my grandfather’s wire-cutters. The digging had minimal success, but then I realized I could use the wire-cutters as a sort of plier. That was effective, and soon I had bits of the solder torn away. However, it left the rings bent quite a bit. And unfortunately, when the pieces had been sized previously, they were cut at the back.

So, finally, I did get them apart! But only after the place where they’d been cut split.

Using some pliers, I bent the ring back into shape and used jeweler’s epoxy resin and hardener as a stopgap to fill in the part where the ring had been cut in half. This is a very temporary move but we have some financial goals and major jewelry repair is not currently on the list. And I am going to wear my rings.

All that to say… When I’m determined, I’m going to make something happen. The 10th anniversary wrap looks gorgeous with my upgraded solitaire, and I took the ring with my original stone and used some more jewelry epoxy to affix an antique family ring that doesn’t have much shank left to it anyway— needs to be replaced— and I am wearing them stacked on my right hand. It’s a very beautiful way to blend my family of origin with my chosen family, symbolically.

And that is the kind of shit I will do when I absolutely refuse to give up on an idea. I make it happen. Maybe not in a conventional way and maybe sort of janky in a temporary sense, but I’m going to it done.