The Comfort and Burden of Belongings, Part 2

The comfort of things and the burden of things continues to occupy my mind. I’ve transitioned this week from slow walks on the beach to running. I’m running again for the first time in years. It started by accident five days ago, and I’ve been running again every day since. For those of you who’ve been reading, you know that “Let go, let go, let go” is my mantra for 2011. I repeat this over and over as I run.

I feel the tightness in my diaphragm and chest finally begin to release.  Seven days ago, I let go of an antique kerosene piano floor lamp that was my mother’s. I’d kept it with feelings of ambivalence for six years, and I finally decided to trade up the comfort of things for the lightness of letting go. It wasn’t representative of my life now; I’m not sure that it ever was. I liked the wrought iron base but felt averse to the hand painted glass globe at the top.

I decided that I would try to sell it to the relative who talked me into keeping it in the first place. She had said it was one of my mother’s favorite pieces, encouraged me to keep it, and said if I didn’t take it, that she would like it. I didn’t trust myself at the time, even though I knew that it wasn’t on the list of things that my mother had told me about four weeks before she died, when she walked me through the rooms of her house, imparting the origins of some of her most precious objects, pausing breathlessly every few steps. I had taken notes.  

Salman Akhtar, in Objects of Our Desire: Exploring Our Intimate Connections with the Things Around Us, writes that loss and nostalgia are at the heart of our refusal to let go of things. He proposes that the greater the sentimental value of the lost items, the more we hold onto them in our reverie.

Akhtar writes about the bittersweet nature of nostalgia in that “The pain of our loss feeds our love of the items…It is bitter because it reminds us of our loss. It is sweet because it emanates from a mental reunion, as it were, with an idealized version of lost possessions and places” (and I would add people). I believe that I hung onto the piano lamp for six years because of my nostalgic longing for my lost home and parents. Forty is young to become parentless, to be an orphan, of sorts. Looking at the lamp brought bittersweet feelings and fond memories of the comfort of home, along with an idealized mental reunion with my deceased parents.      

The day that I decided to let go of the comfort of things, in this case, the lamp, I moved it into another room of my home. I set it by other things that I’m selling or giving away. I had a fleeting thought that I should likely have placed it in a less vulnerable spot in the room, as it was somewhat fragile. The next day, I had the same thought, maybe three times. In my haste, I didn’t move it. Within sixty seconds of the third thought that day that I should move it, I accidentally bumped it with a box, and the glass chimney and glass hand painted globe toppled over. I stood in disbelief, holding my breath, watching it fall to the floor, hearing it smash as it hit.

I heard the self-recriminating thoughts that began immediately in my mind. I inhaled slowly, and then exhaled. For a moment, I felt a vast sense of freedom. Then I paused to note that I really do like it better without that globe!  During the hours that followed, I moved through feelings of relief, humor, freedom, regret, grief, and disappointment at not having listened to myself. I imagined my mother reassuring me that it was just a lamp and it would be ok.

At the end of the day, the worst part of the experience was that the darned thing, which was a beautiful piece, as far as antique piano lamps go, was likely worth well over $1000, and I could have sold it had I not smashed it. I was also left with thoughts about how much energy I had spent in my feelings of ambivalence, the going back and forth about whether to keep it and some of these other inherited objects.  

I’m fascinated by how and why we hold on to the comfort of things sometimes when we really should be letting go. I’m making inquiry into what finally tips us into letting go. What is it that shifts inside of us and allows us to move from ambivalence and into a state of clarity? How does one explain occurrences such as these? Was my neglect in not moving the lamp when I knew clearly that I should a reflection of ongoing ambivalence about keeping it? Was it simple mindlessness and distraction? Was it a symptom of my ambivalent feelings toward both of my parents? Or was it reflective of a deeper pattern of sometimes not listening to what I know to be true?

I am trying to meet each unfolding moment with curiosity and acceptance, letting go.   To what people, places, or things do you cling when you know you should let go? Write about why you hold on so tightly. What do you fear?  

Jen Johnson is a mindfulness teacher, coach, and therapist. Learn more about working with Jen.