Spanish Earrings

When I turned 30, My Beloved surprised me with a trip to Spain.  I adore Spain.  I wish I lived in Spain.  I was 3 credits from a Spanish minor in college and, as a little girl, had the Senora doll from the Around the World Collection.

For a number of reasons we were not able to leave right away so, for a year, we planned.  My Beloved emphasized that this was "my" trip so, though he had picked out the stops, I was the one to plan what we would do in each locale: Madrid, Grenada, Costa del Sol and the Mediterranean Sea, Barcelona.  I devoured books on history, and tour guides, and crafted our own, personalized, 10-day itinerary.  The anticipation was glorious!


Our trip ended in Barcelona.  We explored the ports, the home-improvement district (seriously, we try to check it out everywhere we go: interior construction options can tell you a lot about a people), the Rambla (meh), the market, convents, on and on.  In winding down our journey, our thoughts turned to souvenirs and we picked up two finger puppets, a king and queen, a Ferdinand and an Isabel.  Still itchy with the "buying bug", we stopped in a local artists shop and I spied a pair of pale blue dangly earrings with pale pink painted flowers.  They were breathtaking, and so was the price.  At this point in the trip, we'd already spent the equivalent of 1/2 of a Honda, so - though I hemmed and hawed for quite a while - I walked away.

However....

When would I be in Spain, again?!  They were so beautiful and delicate, and everything that is Spain to me!  At My Beloved's urging, I changed my mind and, before dinner, in a panic that they might have been bought up, we rushed back to the store.  To find, in fact, that they had been bought up.  That's the problem with one-of-a-kind jewelry and a hesitant nature.

We delighted in the remaining hours of our stay and made it safely back home with rolls and rolls of film (this was when I was 30, remember, just after cameras were invented) and my head awhirl with memories and the stinging lesson to seize the opportunity.

That night, heavy with jet lag, My Beloved and I recalled our favorite moments and relived parts of the trip.  And then he leaned into his bedside drawer and pulled out those beautiful spanish earrings.  He had run back to purchase them when I was in the hotel and, though he doesn't speak a lick of Spanish, convinced the shop girl to tell me if we came back that evening that they'd been purchased by another.

Sure, I tell you this story now and the surprise ending is anything but; you anticipated it from the title.  But I, my dear readers, was floored.  Now when I see those earrings, I think not only of the amazing, once-in-a-lifetime trip, but am reminded of the generosity and love of My Beloved.