From Dumped to Beloved

It’s my fourteenth birthday, and my sixteen-year-old boyfriend, Tedd, is taking me to the mall for lunch and maybe a movie. We have been together for a whole year, and he is my first “real” boyfriend. He professed his love for me after about two months, and we have been best friends ever since. He slides a large, high-quality blue teddy bear across the table as my birthday gift. I’m not sure why, but this little punk fourteen-year-old completely melted. He smiled and said, “Here’s a Teddy from a Tedd.”

I could tell something was bothering him. He was quieter than usual. At the end of lunch he looked at me and said, “I want to break up with you. I know it’s your birthday, but I don’t love you anymore. I just want to be friends.”

I was utterly crushed. I wanted to burst into tears. I was shocked and couldn’t believe what he was telling me. How could he suddenly just not love me anymore? Was I really that unlovable? Although my heart shattered into a million pieces, I didn’t dare show him my grief. My teenage pride kicked in. I gathered what dignity I had left and said, “Yeah, okay. I don’t care. We’ve been together a year. It’s probably good that it’s over.”

I got a tiny bit of satisfaction from the disappointed look on his face. I think he hoped I would protest and beg him to give me another chance. Maybe he wanted me to fight for us, but I wasn’t willing to give him that. The truth is I was devastated. Heartbroken. I couldn’t imagine how I would survive losing my first love. A burning ache rose in my throat as I fought back the flood of tears and the hysterical sobbing threatening to spill over.

He stood up looking a little angry. I grabbed my blue teddy bear, and we walked out of the restaurant. I don’t remember if we even said goodbye. We left an entire essay of words unspoken on that table. Neither of us fully explained ourselves or found the emotional maturity to articulate what we were feeling. All I knew was self-protection and the deep shame that somehow I wasn’t enough. The emotions continued to swell as I walked alone through the mall toward the bus stop.

The second I stepped through the automatic doors and the warm air hit my face, the tears I had held back for the last ten minutes came pouring down. So did the gut-wrenching sobs. I cried the entire way home. By the time I got there, my head throbbed from crying so hard.

Thankfully, my dad and brother weren’t home to see my swollen red eyes. They were in Greece together for my grandfather’s funeral. My mom was sitting on the couch reading the newspaper.

“You’re home so early. I thought you were seeing a movie.”

I couldn’t speak.

After a moment she looked up and saw me standing there, still holding my blue teddy bear.

“Oh honey, what happened? Why are you crying?”

She laid the newspaper on the coffee table and patted the cushion beside her. I sat down, wrapped my arms around her neck, buried my face in her shoulder, and through uncontrollable sobs managed to say, “Tedd dumped me.”

She held me close, stroking my hair. “Oh no. Oh dear. Oh my gosh... you poor thing.”

She rocked me back and forth, trying to comfort me. She didn’t ask why. She didn’t tell me he was a jerk. She didn’t promise I’d find someone better. She simply held me. It was one of the rare tender moments I shared with my mom during those years.

I spent the rest of my birthday alone in my room, filling pages of my journal with somber poetry, trying to soothe my broken heart.

The next morning I woke up determined to pull myself together. It was Sunday, and my dad and brother were due home from Greece that afternoon. There was no way I was going to let either of them know what had happened. I had to become a stoic emotional statue, ready to hear all about their trip.

Their homecoming filled the living room with unzipped suitcases, packages spilling out everywhere, and my dad enthusiastically lavishing my mother with gifts. There were clothes, scarves, a leather purse and wallet, handmade cobbled shoes, and jewelry. I sat fascinated by the colors, the patterns, and the craftsmanship. Everything looked so exotic, nothing like I had ever seen before. It was as though he had returned from some distant ancient marketplace.

Then he looked at me and smiled.

“And for my very special birthday princess, I have something very expensive.”

He held out a stack of small white boxes in different sizes and placed them in front of me. I could hardly wait to open them. I reached for the smallest one first. Inside was a pair of long dangling sterling silver earrings with intricate blackened details. I had never seen anything so beautiful.

“Oh my gosh, Dad! These are so cool! I love them!”

“There’s more! Open the rest!”

He reached for the boxes to help, but I laughed and snatched the larger one from his hands. Inside was a breathtaking ornate necklace that perfectly matched the earrings. I gasped.

“This set is a copy of an ancient Greek design your ancestors wore.”

That was it.

That sentence reached straight into my heart.

To wear something that connected me to my ancestors. To something ancient. Noble. Rare.

He had bought me the entire set: the ring, the bracelet, the earrings, and the necklace, all crafted from real sterling silver. I sat there completely mesmerized. I threw my arms around my dad, thanked him a hundred times, and covered his cheeks with grateful kisses.

Then I ran to my room and put every piece on. I stood in front of the mirror and saw an ancient queen staring back at me. She was wise beyond her years. She was exotic. Royal blood seemed to flow through her veins. She was valuable. Important. Significant. She had worth.

With just a few little white boxes filled with ornate silver jewelry, my dad had restored my soul.

For a little while, I forgot all about Tedd.

My very first piece of jewelry was a silver ring with a tiger’s eye stone. I was probably five years old when my dad brought it home from a business trip to the Yakama Indian Reservation. I wore it every day until my fingers outgrew it. It stayed on my pinky until I was about ten years old.

The next piece of jewelry I received was a pair of real diamond stud earrings for my twelfth birthday. My dad told me they were real gold and real diamonds, and that not many girls my age owned something so precious. “Only princesses or heiresses have real diamond earrings,” he said.

Once again, I felt like royalty.

The jewelry I received came almost exclusively from my dad and was treasured by his little princess. It made me feel valuable. It made me feel seen. It made me believe I was precious in his eyes, and somehow the jewelry became tangible evidence of that love.

When I was about eight years old, my Greek grandmother gave me her 22-karat gold ID bracelet with our shared name engraved on it. Every time my dad traveled for work, he brought me back a real gold charm from wherever he had been. I collected a hotel from New Hampshire, a lobster from Maine, and several charms from Hawaii because he traveled there often. I loved that bracelet and finally grew into it as a teenager, although I always preferred my Greek silver jewelry over gold.

When I turned sixteen, my dad gave me an emerald ring, my birthstone. At eighteen, he bought me a ruby and diamond ring that I treasured for years before passing it on to my daughter, Dalia, when she turned eighteen.

My dad started my fascination with jewelry when I was just five years old, and it has never left me. Everywhere I’ve traveled, if I come across something ornate, unusual, beautifully crafted, and made from real silver or gold, I have a hard time walking away. Over the years I’ve collected drawer after drawer of jewelry. I am, quite literally, obsessed.

Since the beginning of civilization, long before there was written language, jewelry has communicated who we are, where we belong, and what story we carry. In ancient cultures it signified status, tribe, marriage, wealth, spirituality, protection, lineage, and power. Women often carried much of their personal wealth in the jewelry they wore. It became one of the few socially accepted ways they could communicate identity, influence, and even security without speaking a word.

Most of my life I struggled to understand my own value. I grew up feeling unworthy of protection, insignificant, and somehow less than. As a teenager I carried the ache of feeling unlovable. Later, during my marriage, I wrestled with the persistent belief that I was never enough and never could be. That hidden monologue played on repeat for years, and I couldn’t seem to silence it.

Then, in my thirties, I picked up a book called Captivating by Stasi Eldredge.

As I devoured its pages, my heart slowly opened to the possibility that God valued me so deeply He willingly sacrificed His own Son, not because I had earned it, but simply because I was His. I began to realize He had never abandoned me during all those years I felt invisible. He had been with me through every heartbreak, every disappointment, every wound, collecting every tear that fell. For the first time, I truly believed I was loved.

Stasi wrote that at the heart of every woman is the desire to be loved, to be indispensable in a grand adventure, and to know she is valued above rubies. That book permanently reshaped the way I saw myself.

I stopped looking to my husband for my worth. I stopped looking to my dad or my friends for approval. God became my mirror and the source of my identity. My sense of royal blood came from Him, not from jewelry. My feeling of being an exotic beauty from a faraway land came from the heart of God, not from what I wore around my neck.

Today, the drawers filled with my jewelry collection have become reminders of who I am and who I belong to. Every time I wear one of these rare, ornate, queenly pieces from Dimitrios Exclusive, I remember the authority I walk in, the King I represent, and the grand adventure I’ve been invited into. Each piece has become a marker along my journey. They remind me of hardship and healing, pain and forgiveness, courage and growth. They are far more than precious metals and beautiful craftsmanship. They are symbols of identity.

My jewelry is no longer something I wear hoping to feel worthy.

It is something I wear in celebration of the worth that has always existed within me.

The octopus is a creature that hides in plain sight. Intelligent. Mysterious. Soft, yet impossibly strong.

This collection, Dreams of the Deep, isn’t trying to make you feel important.

It’s inviting you to remember that you already are.

You are lovable.

You are significant.

You are deeply valued, and your worth is immeasurable. You have an essential role in an epic story, and your place in that Divine adventure cannot be filled by anyone else.

Whether you purchase a piece from me or not, my hope is that every time you put on a beautiful piece of jewelry, it reminds you of your true identity and celebrates the immeasurable value you already possess in the eyes of God and the people who love you.

The Dreams of the Deep pre-sale ends July 22nd

The pre-sale ends Wednesday, July 22nd, at midnight EST. Every pre-sale order includes a free fine art print of Garden of Dreams, and your pieces will ship within 30 days of purchase.

If the ring size you want is gone, don’t worry. Email me and I’ll honor the pre-sale so you can still get it. If you’d like a smaller or larger bracelet, we can customize it at no extra charge.

Shipping is free worldwide, and European orders ship from Europe with no incoming tariffs, taxes, or duties.

Shop the Dreams of the Deep collection to choose your piece.