Kirsty Bosley: Losing something precious has had a profound effect on me

It was a dream that I'd harboured since watching Home Alone 2 as a five-year-old in the cinema. My sister Kelli had taken me to see it, and had told me off for drinking all of my Ribena before the film had even began. Typical me.

Watching Kevin McCallister running around New York City, visiting mega toy shops and eating monster pizzas really appealed to me. Forever after I'd watch movies based in the city that never sleeps with longing. Everything seemed to happen there – it was a dream that wasn't to become reality until many years later, when I turned 21.

A university student at that point with no overdraft, I decided to throw caution to the wind and go. My nan paid for my flights as a birthday gift, and my hotel and spending money came courtesy of interest-free student rates. Thanks HSBC.

On Fifth Avenue I went to Tiffany's, feeling like a little, podgy Black Country Audrey Hepburn. "What's the cheapest thing you sell?" I must have asked, because before I knew it, I was walking out with a darling blue box tied with a white ribbon. It was magical.

Inside contained a little silver ring – nothing lavish but it was mine and it felt so special. I put it on my finger and rarely removed it again for the next seven years.

Over time, it had become part of me. When I got fatter, it threatened to become a permanent part of me. I once tainted it bleaching the bathroom and had to scrub it with toothpaste and a toothbrush, and it came up looking better than ever before.

And then one day six months ago, it disappeared.

For weeks I avoided looking for it because I didn't want to face the reality that it was nowhere to be found. And then when the anxiety that came with the loss got too much, I spent teary afternoons taking apart my washing machine, dismantling pipes and upending tables in my quest to find my beloved ring. It was nowhere to be found. I searched friend's houses, pockets, cupboards and bins that had been emptied dozens of times since I'd last seen it and it was still lost.

For months I mourned it, talking about it often to the annoyance of friends and colleagues. The skin where it'd sat began to peel – like my fingertips do when I haven't played guitar for a few weeks – and the flesh plumped back out. It was almost as if the little silver loop had never existed in the first place.

I wrote a poem under a fake name in the Star, sharing my woe, wondering where it was and whether someone had traded it in at a pawn shop for a couple of quid.

Some days I'd peruse eBay and 'buy sell swap' sites on Facebook for any indication that someone had found it, but there was nothing. Six months down the line I still kicked at mud in the street. A silvery glint of a ring-pull or chewing gum wrapper made my heart stop, and I'd feel fresh loss all over again when I realised it wasn't what I had been hoping to see. My flat was rearranged, the vacuum dismantled, and still my ring was lost. It was time to give up, I thought.

This week I fly out to New York City, and two weeks ago I made the decision to head to Tiffany's to buy a new ring. Maybe I'd get the same one again? And then I decided that I couldn't – it wouldn't feel right replacing it. "I might just get a tattoo there," I told my colleague Emily on one of the days when I felt particularly down about it.

As I started to plan what I'd get to fill the void that the ring had left on my hand, I had a brainwave.

Last year for Halloween, I'd interviewed John Starkey, a clairvoyant in Wolverhampton revered for his supernatural skills. He'd told me how he'd put people in touch with those they'd lost, foretelling the future, and strangely how he'd helped them find misplaced items.

Now I don't believe in that baloney, so I couldn't see how he could help me locate my ring. But after a quick chat with pals, I decided that there was nothing left to lose. So I dropped John an email. "Hi John. Kirsty here. I don't suppose you know where I might find my lost silver ring do you?"

And then I forgot all about it. I came into work the following day and began trawling through my emails. "Check denim pockets," read John's reply plain and simple, and I was invigorated by fresh hope. Maybe . . . just maybe.

I saw apprehension etched on Emily's face; she was worried I'd be disappointed once again. After I'd rushed home to excitedly check my pockets for the 500th time – finding nothing – she was right, I was.

Sitting on the floor of my spare room, I held my finger and decided that this was it: I needed to just get over this loss. I hoped that someone had found it and it had made their day, and that it was now their most treasured item, as it had been mine.

And then I had a lightbulb moment. At the top of my 8ft wardrobe there's a little shelf reserved for the electric blanket and a sleeping bag. I grabbed a stool and precariously balanced on it to reach to the very back. Maybe there were some old jeans up there?

I found no denim, but I did unearth a purple hoodie, baggy and torn, that I hadn't worn since I was 21. Or so I thought.

I plunged my hand into one pocket and felt nothing. But as I slid my hand into pocket number two, I felt the old familiar weight on the tips of my fingers . . .