I damaged two of the stones on my wedding ring a while ago, and had to hand it to a goldsmith for the stones to be replaced.

Unexpectedly for me, when I got back the ring I noticed it had been polished – an odd decision, given that this ring was one of a pair, and polishing just one of two matching rings leads to a weird-looking result. Not to mention that these rings had a matte finish to begin with.

Since you cannot really “unpolish” a ring, I handed them the other ring as well and had them both re-matted. That week, with no rings on my finger, I kept noticing their absence all the time. It wasn’t so much the ring finger itself that felt empty. It turns out that, throughout the day, I occasionally touch the rings in a particular gesture with my other fingers – and when the ring is not there, they meet an emptiness.

Now I have them back, looking as nice as they did when they were new, and my fingers can feel comfortable again.