For Christmas, a friend of mine gave me a collection of essays called Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York. Titled after Joan Didion’s iconic 1968 essay about loving New York City “the way you love the first person who ever touches you and you never love anyone quite that way again,” the pieces in the collection reminded me of my own affair with the Big Apple, not to mention the business through which I came to experience it.The truth is, I’ve devoted the past 14 years to a complicated, yet loving, relationship with the jewelry industry. My story has all the elements of a modern-day romance: suitors, heartbreak, and an impressive pile of precious gifts to ease the way.I alluded to this relationship in a brief speech I gave in front of 500 people at the Jewelry Information Center’s 12th annual GEM Awards on Jan. 10, when I accepted the award for media exce