My engagement ring was always too small. When Chris first proposed with it four years ago, we struggled to get it on my finger, and then really struggled to get it off. It’s always been the most frustrating when it’s hot outside because that’s when my fingers swell, just like my mom’s do, and I’d need to pry it off after applying soapy water to my hands. So finally, a couple weeks ago, I decided to have it sent in to be resized just a half size bigger, and when it came back, it was amazing: you’d be shocked to see what a difference just a half size in a ring makes. Not only that, the company also tightened all the prongs and professionally steam cleaned my ring, so now, this ring looks almost better than it did when I first received it. When I opened the box, I couldn’t stop staring at how clear it looked. It was almost newer than new, and in some ways, looked like a different stone.

Since I’ve started wearing it again, I’ve gotten no less than half a dozen different people asking me if I just got married or received a new engagement ring. Today, while having my highlights redone with my hair stylist, she randomly exclaimed, “Wow, girl! I love your ring! It looks like brand new! Did he get you a new one?”

It’s definitely not new, but it certainly feels like it’s new all over again given all the attention this ring has suddenly started receiving again. This professional steam clean really paid off, even though it cost nothing.

This week, I’ve spent four intense days in our San Francisco office, and also at our offsite at the Grand Hyatt in downtown with my team coming from across the globe. It’s been extremely enjoyable for me to connect in person, in meetings and over tea and meals, with my colleagues, some of whom I call friends. It’s been non-stop catch-ups and walks with so many people since I’ve arrived. I love seeing colleagues and friends I have not seen in a while and reconnecting with them. I enjoy sharing random anecdotes, travel and customer stories, and laughing about ridiculous experiences. I love learning new things about people that I didn’t know before. I’m always curious to find out more about everyone, to uncover the things that others do not know. As an extrovert, I derive so much energy in the presence of others, particularly those I find intellectually stimulating, humorous, and fun to be around. But as an introvert, when all of this is done, as it is for me tonight as I am headed to the airport to return back to New York on a red eye, I relish my alone time and enjoy not speaking to anyone, putting my earbuds in and listening to my book or my music. I enjoy being in the company of no one I recognize or know, and not being obligated to speak to anyone or have any type of conversation. Though I am the type of person who enjoys striking up conversations with complete strangers, when I’m in transit, especially when flying, I’d prefer not to chat at all unless it’s initiated by someone else.

I feel my extrovert and introvert all the time. They’re not necessarily at odds, but while some like the labels of being one or the other, I feel very firmly in the center of both.

After lunch at home with my parents yesterday, we went to the Columbarium to visit Ed. After spending some time cleaning the glass of his niche and peering into the little world I built for him, it was time to bid him farewell for now. On our way out, I went into the main building and ended up meeting the new family service counselor. She’d actually been there for a couple years now, and we had just not met yet. Part of her job is to go around to each of the halls in the Columbarium to do routine checks of each niche to make sure each is in good shape. She asked me what my brother’s name is, and I told her. “Edward?” she repeated, surprised. “Wait, is he in the Hall of Olympians? He’s the one who has the Simpsons family with him?”

I almost lost my breath. I just stared at her and felt chills all over my body. How is it possible that in what is probably thousands of niches throughout this historic building that she could remember Ed’s over all of the others?

When she first began about two years ago, she walked around and browsed the niches, trying to get a feel for the place that she called her new workplace. She said she immediately noticed Ed’s niche. Ed’s niche was the one that touched her the most, and she kept wondering what happened to him and what the stories were behind the Simpsons and the other trinkets that decorated the surrounds of his urn.

She said that she felt for me because she also lost a sibling recently, as well. A couple of years ago, she was on a family vacation with her four siblings and parents when suddenly, one of her sisters was found dead in her hotel room by their father. She was just 34. “34?” I said. “Ed was just a month shy of his 34th birthday when he died.” Our eyes just locked. “That is just too strange, too much of a coincidence,” she responded pensively. Her sister also had a decades long struggle with depression. Another sister had attempted suicide. It was all too real for her, too.

She told my dad and me that we did a really good job decorating Ed’s niche. My dad shifted a bit and cracked a little smile. “Well, that was all Yvonne,” my dad said, looking down, still smiling. “Yvonne did everything and organized it all for him.”

“Well, then, you did a really great job,” she said to me. “I don’t think you realize how many people you unknowingly touch and how they can feel your brother through his niche.”

She said she was so happy we met, and that she got to meet the person who decorated that memorable niche. I’m still feeling strange that this meeting occurred, that we have these tragic commonalities, that she was so touched by my brother’s niche that she’d remember it and say it stood out from the others. I wonder if Ed was listening to that conversation.

When I was in middle school, I thumbed through Rainier Maria Rilke’s book Letters to a Young Poet. I’m tempted to read it again now, as when I think about relationships, my thoughts often return to what I read in that book. He was the kind of writer who, when you read his writing, it kind of just stays with you and soaks itself in your head. And then at random moments during the day after reading his words, those words just come back to you without you even consciously thinking about it.

The quote that always comes back to me, which apparently on the web is oftentimes cited, is this one:

“The point of marriage is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries; on the contrary, a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude, and thus they show each other the greatest possible trust. A merging of two people is an impossibility, and where it seems to exist, it is a hemming-in, a mutual consent that robs one party or both parties of their fullest freedom and development. But once the realization is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, a marvelous living side-by-side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and before an immense sky.”

It aligns with what I’ve thought to be the ideal relationship: one in which two people do not become one (the idea of being “joined at the hip” has always made me want to vomit in my mouth; those couples I meet at weddings or parties where they cannot allow the other to have a 1:1 conversation have always disgusted me), or the idea that after marriage, a spouse must stop doing all the things she’s loved doing individually or with others. The ideal relationship is one in which the two spouses can still be their individual selves with their individual loves and hates and opinions, but when joined together, enrich each others’ lives with their similarities as well as their differences. They relish in each others’ company, but they also respect each others’ boundaries and allow each other to be themselves and have their own time and opinions. They have shared experiences, but not everything will be shared, whether it’s experience or outlook or opinion, and that’s healthy and fine. They are still individuals, right? They grow together, with each other, and motivate each other to be the best version of themselves. They challenge each other to be better, to be happier and more developed. They accept that they have an understanding of each other, but they may not always understand each other fully, and that is healthy and normal because even one cannot fully understand oneself fully, so how can we expect our partners to? At the end of the day, they trust each other. They may betray each other’s trust at times, but they will love each other to the point where they can have forgiveness and learn from the times of betrayed trust. We’re all human beings. We’re imperfect. We’re going to mess up. It’s okay. And that’s just part of life and growing.

As a society, we have such unrealistic expectations of romantic relationships, of marriage. So it’s no wonder that the divorce and separation rates are so high, that people are always in and out of relationships, that we keep seeking out “the perfect one” but it usually ends up in vain, or we “settle.” But perhaps we should be more forgiving, more open minded, more questioning of these unrealistic expectations to create our own that are more in line with what we think should be right and good for ourselves.

As long as I have been cooking, saffron was always known to me as the most coveted and most valuable (money wise) spice in the world. It’s often been said that saffron is more expensive than gold by weight. Given that at Costco, the equivalent of about one tablespoon of Spanish saffron costs $10, I can only imagine how much it would cost at regular market price.

My friend recently came back from Spain and bought me a small bottle of saffron, and I’d been waiting for the “right” use for it until today, when I decided to make Persian herbed rice. I crushed the little strands into a powder and steeped the little precious bits in hot water to draw out all the aromas. And then I inhaled it. Well, it certainly smelled real.

It was absolutely nothing like the fake saffron I bought when I was in Budapest over three years ago. I got so excited when I was at a market there and found a bag of saffron for the equivalent of a few dollars, and stupidly I bought it and thought I’d gotten the best deal ever! When I got home, I prepared a finishing sauce for chicken with the “saffron” and ended up throwing all the sauce out. That “saffron” was the most bitter “herb” I’d ever added to anything I’d ever cooked. I really got what I paid for.

Never again. I’m going to relish these last few strands of saffron I have left.

Today was dedicated to Insights Discovery System training for our team. We had all taken an online evaluation that took about 15-20 minutes about two weeks ago that would be the focus of our training today. Insights enables companies to bring self-awareness to their people and teams; it’s sort of like Myers-Briggs but with an adjusted interpretation of Carl Jung’s theories. The goal is to ultimately increase self-awareness, which would then allow us to better form relationships and become more effective at our jobs. I’d taken a Myers-Briggs test years ago but didn’t remember my letter-combination; I find that the Insights approach of using colors is so much easier to remember.

One of the exercises we did was to have each person in the group answer four simple questions about their childhood: 1) Where were you born and raised? 2) If you have siblings, how many and who are they relative to you in age? 3) What was your “role” in your family? and 4) What was your biggest challenge growing up, and what did you learn from it?

I heard the questions and realized how vulnerable this was going to make a lot of us. What were we each going to share and how “revealing” would we be? How authentic to our childhood would the shared thoughts be? It ended up being this extremely emotional and intense setting, as so many facts about my colleagues came out that, if this exercise never happened, I likely never would have learned any of these details… things ranging from parenting a parent at the age of five, multiple instances of alcoholism of dads, dealing with the death of a sibling when a colleague was only 5, and being left alone regularly at the age of 4.

What you realize in exercises like this is how those childhood experiences shape you for the rest of your life. It may not always be obvious, but those experiences can come out at the most unanticipated moments. When I think about it, I can see in these colleagues who were so open to sharing and being vulnerable how those experiences at a young age manifested in the ways they lead their lives today, even in something as simple as everyday conversations or how or when to speak up in group meetings.

We had a room full of people crying and blowing their noses. Somehow, I managed to stay dry-eyed and only blew my nose when I was too congested from this stupid cold I’ve somehow caught. I never thought I’d ever be in a room full of work colleagues like that in my life. It honestly for me was an enlightening experience and one that I know I’ll probably be contemplating for the next several days.