The Sadness of Possession

"fading memory" by late night movie

What is it in us that makes us want to hold onto things? If we enjoy something, we want to know it's going to be there, where we left it, to tickle those neurons again and again. There's an impulse to take it, keep it, make it ours. Sometimes we feel possessive when we see others enjoying something, too. Look at the handsome couple in that gleaming new car. Get me to the dealership.

But having something is a responsibility and a burden. Not only must you care for it, you must insure it against loss. Once you have it, it can be taken away from you.

People can be taken away, too. I want to love and be sure that you will love me. I'll make you mine, you make me yours. Let's get jealous!

The most impossible objects to own are human beings. It's as though they have minds of their own -- fickle, constantly evolving minds that change in entirely unpredictable ways.

I have a few friends now on the brink of marital separation, some going through it, others who are recently divorced. Several of my friends are widows.

The process of losing someone you once possessed births you into a second adulthood. Everyone has startled looks on their faces, birds and stars buzzing around their heads. Their eyes are wide open with surprise as though they've just been kicked out of the assembly line.

I watched this happen twenty or so years ago when my older siblings got divorced one by one. Their lives entered a chaos period with late nights of drinking and uncertainty. New people floated in and out of their lives. Then, for the most part, things settled down again. They started over.

We're programmed from an early age to believe that love is a precious union that lasts "ever after," but that is simply not the case. Love is a story with a beginning, middle, and end. At least, that's how it works on this planet. Some stories are just longer than others.

We can't ever truly possess objects or people, we can only just be with them. When they are gone, we are left only with the longing for them. It's important to remind ourselves during this longing that this, too, is living.

I think it is entirely possible that the meaning of life is to learn how to welcome and how to let go. We start our lives by welcoming knowledge -- light, sounds, touch -- into our lives, and we end it by letting go of every last thing -- our money, our family, all of the knowledge we've acquired. We'll lose every image, every dream, every name.

Big losses make us shy about welcoming, or at least it has for me. Why should I expose myself to that kind of loss again?

The answer is simple: Because there is a joy to living. If you can simply be in the present moment and be grateful for it while neither attaching yourself to it nor pushing it away, you will experience that joy. All of this is temporary. That is why it is so beautiful.

I'm reminded of all of this by Bob Dylan. When 12,000 songs are shuffled on my iPod, it's hard not to see secret messages in random coincidence:

Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you.
Forget the dead you've left, they will not follow you.
The vagabond who's rapping at your door
Is standing in the clothes that you once wore.
Strike another match, go start anew
And it's all over now, Baby Blue.