I was left a small inheritance from my grandma. Unhesitatingly, I gave it away to a cousin – one of my grandma’s other grandchildren – that was in school and really needed the money far more than I did. It got me thinking, why the money was something I wasn’t at all greedy for when I am greedy for so many other things. I realized I never really thought of the inheritance as mine. I never imagined a future with it. It was never an important part of my plans.

The things I imagine a future with, the things I view as most essential to the future I want –my body, Eric and my money — those are what I cling to tightest. Those are what I am most greedy for. Because of my imaginary future, I suffer at any sign these items, which I need for this future to come true, may become damaged, defunct, or dead. I stress extra hard to hold onto these things.

Several years back, I had a friend who miscarried, she and her husband were absolutely devastated by the loss of her pregnancy, and I struggled to understand why. To me, it seemed like they were mourning the loss of a baby they didn’t even have yet. Only when I came to understand they were mourning the loss of the future they imagined they would have with that baby did I understand their reaction.

We become attached to our imagination of the future. We cling to the objects that we believe are requisite to that future coming true. We claim those objects as ours, mine, in the hopes we can control them – hang onto them – make sure that through our claims, through our efforts, we can ensure those objects our fantasy future depends on will still be around when the future actually comes.

A long time ago LP Nut told me a story of how LP Anan had taken a group on a hike and made everyone carry a chair. LP Anan’s question to the group was, “why can’t you lay down the burden of the chair and just keep walking?” I imagined myself on that hike, unable to put down the chair, and I realized for me, I wouldn’t lay down the chair because I imagine some scenario I might need it in the future, so I cling to it just in case. It’s the same reason I have so many shoes and dresses and jewelry I still can’t seem to consign –the just in case my story calls for it later. It’s the reason I cling to my vast sums of money, but easily give away the small pittance my grandmother left me. It’s too trivial an amount to effect my future, I don’t imagine a just in case where I might need it.

A few days after considering the inheritance issue, I was waiting at the radiology center to go get my annual mammogram, waiting in fear that the doctor might see something suspicious. Why — because I am attached to a story I need this body for, a story where it is healthy and still usable by me. I need it the way I need a chair, the shoes and the clothes, the wealth, just in case, for what happens next. If I could just lay down my attachment to the story having this ending or that, this story arc or that, I wouldn’t have to worry about the just in cases, I wouldn’t have to stress and suffer anymore.

I trade a whole lot of worry, and work, and pain to be attached to an imaginary story. What is the upside I really get through? If the mammogram is ok, all I get is a little, temporary relief from the worry it created, worry that will come back again just as soon as I again sense a threat to this body. Thats because, deep down, I know –everyone knows—that the objects, the body, we use to hang these fantasies on, are here for only a little while before they shift/decay/die.

And do these objects really even confirm my story? Even if I have them, all aligned, for a single point in time, is that a confirmation of the story I have imagined? If so, for how long? will it satisfy me or make me? Even if I have all the objects, can’t I have a “wrong story?” I mean I have Eric, body and money right now, am I happy? Is this my peak story? If I were really so satisfied by this particular arrangement, why am I so stressed all the time? Why am I always focusing on preserving, or acquiring, building my story?

I run around and use physical objects like props in a play,  to help manifest and confirm the stories I tell about who I am, what my future will be. But, the objects I choose to do so are arbitrary. One home can be subbed for another, one boyfriend for another. But once I latch-on, once the object is part of my imagination, I cling. Once I cling, I suffer to hold, and I suffer to loose. But these objects my imagination has grown attached to, that it hangs its storyline on, are no different than any other objects. No matter what I imagine, impermanence, annatta always write the end of the story and it is always the same. I will leave them and they will leave me.