The Bracelet

My husband recently presented me with a bracelet he received when he bought a shirt at Modell’s. They tossed it in the bag with his purchase as a cross-promotion for the Make-A-Wish Foundation and the Jorge Posada Foundation for children affected by Craniosynostosis. It is a simple orange string with a silver wishbone on it and the card said that, if you made a wish, when the bracelet fell off, your wish would come true. I liked it. I put it around my ankle where I thought it looked unconventional and sexy. I always wanted an ankle bracelet and never got one. So I made my wish for financial abundance and the success of the new venture I was undertaking and went about my life. I continually examined the bracelet for signs of wear and saw none. “How long is this supposed to last”, I wondered. I showered with it, wore it to gym class and on my walks, took it to Florida to visit my Mom, went on the ocean with it; it looked like it was going to be around for a long time. Yesterday, I began to notice the elaborate knots that kept the bracelet together yet allowed you to adjust the size with ease beginning to unravel. I tried to retie the knot but the ends were too short. The unraveling continued until the neat little bracelet looked less neat and more like a tangled mess of thread where its ends once hung dainty and elegantly. At about three-thirty yesterday afternoon, as I lounged in the slightly-less-than-refreshing water that distinguishes pools in southern Florida in July, I felt the bracelet widen around my ankle. I reached for it and found, not a bracelet, but a long orange string with a wishbone on it. It had completely unraveled. Had I been walking, it might have slipped from my leg unnoticed and disappeared into the earth where the magical work of making my wish come true would have begun. Instead, here it was in my hand. I swam to the side of the pool with the rescued bracelet. Back on my lounge chair, I tried to retie the string so the bracelet would have another chance to slip away surreptitiously because, I now knew, I would not be able to part with it otherwise. I liked it! I liked the delicate wishbone hanging at the side of my ankle and the orange string, so simple and sexy against my tanned skin. Did I also like the delay of fulfillment? Was there something keeping me from wanting my wishes to come true? I have had a lifelong problem with “asking for what I want” which has been accompanied by the issue of “not getting what I want”. Is this bracelet merely symbolic of the real problem: I like it this way?