In the midst of facing foreclosure, it is not unusual to seek out the advise and counsel of a bankruptcy attorney, and so I did this week. I have to say it was a most comforting experience; a safe place in which to review the financial picture of my life at this moment and,  armed with more options, a place to make choices about my future .

However, being the person I am, I came away with insights that may never occur to most people in this position. The biggest one for me was my reaction to his asking about jewelry. I said, very honestly, I have none. Now, mind you, I hadn’t removed any diamonds from my fingers, neck or earlobes, in an attempt to look impoverished. I honestly don’t have any. Anything I ever have had somehow got lost during my ownership of it. I just never cared enough, I guess. When other women would remark, “Did you see that rock on her hand?” in obvious awe and envy, I usually had missed it. It just never mattered to me.

So my answer was a relief to the attorney, but my reaction over the next few hours was somewhat of a surprise to me. One of the first things I did when I got home was to make a call to a long lost friend. I realized that my jewelry box contained letters, cards and memories, but no actual gold or diamonds. It held reminders of the real gems in my life, my relationships. To hear a voice respond happily to mine, after seventeen years in between, as though we had spoken  yesterday…..now that’s something to treasure. The value of a person who has touched your heart, and whose heart you have touched, contains every bit of the alchemy that turns a rock into a gem that perhaps only those involved will ever know about.

I have often thought of myself as a diamond in the rough, a potentially wonderful woman, waiting for someone to discover her and polish her up. I am quite confident now that I was always a diamond, it just depended on the eye of the beholder, and whether they could recognize one when they saw one. I am so grateful for the eyes that found me, and for their owner’s ability to communicate what they saw back to me, in words that I could hold onto. My reflection was more beautiful than I had ever imagined. And in the manner of the old saying, “it takes one to know one”,  I guess it had a lot to do with the fact that I had also briefly glimpsed their magnificence, and honestly reflected it back to them. It appears that I have the eyes of an alchemist as well.