Flashlight: I lost my friggin flashlight. Again. Sooo annoyed. I put it outside in the sun to charge at the retreat center. Someone must have moved it. Or maybe I just forgot it somewhere. I go questing, find it on a table, ‘sweet my flashlight found!’ Darkness comes and I am prepared, I turn on my flashlight, but no light. Its broken, or it didn’t charge. Now I need to borrow a light…Ugh, fucking flashlight!

But wait…when l put that flashlight in the sun to charge, when I wanted it but couldn’t find it, when I counted on it, trusted it to get me through darkness, then it was MY flashlight. But when it failed me, when it was just a useless tool, then it was FUCKING flashlight. Hint hint Alana, there is a wrong view lurking here..

Had it ever really been my flashlight if it could become un-mine so fast? Un-mine in my head when I got annoyed. Un-mine if it were really lost.  Un-mine if I threw it away because it broke. Un-mine because it made me worry and look for it and blame others for its disappearance. Un-mine because do  really own things I don’t control.

And what else is un-mine? What else do I need to look more closely at, investigate, re-think, unclaim:

Wedding Ring: I lost it. I blamed a friend. I was so sad and hurt when it was gone. Worried it was a bad omen for my marriage. After it was gone I didn’t even want a new one, the loss of one un-mine ring made me worry about losing a second ring I hadn’t even gotten yet. And what if I saw it on someone else’s finger, now, years later —  would I take it back? Could it be mine? Would it even legally or socially be mine? Is it mine if it is someone else’s now?

Second Hand Clothes: I buy most of my clothes second hand, ebay, consignment shops, etc. So when exactly does it become mine? When I pick it up off the rack, when I pay, when I hang it in my closet? What if the old owner saw me wearing ‘their’ dress, wanted it back? I have found keys and wallets before and returned them, so were they mine when I found them but someone else’s when I gave them back? Is it mine if it was someone else’s before?

The Porsche: I didn’t even want the car, Eric chose it. How much suffering it causes when I need to take it to the shop, when I worry about dents and theft. I imagine the car gives me an identity, sleek, sexy, rich. But sometimes I worry it gives me the wrong identity, show off, inappropriate, impractical, driving husband’s fancy car. Is it mine if I share it? Is it mine if I am ambivalent about what it makes me?

My Dad: Dad has been dead for years. What does his being mine mean when he is not even here? What part of him is mine? Is something still mine after it is dead, gone?

The Goodwill Pile:  The bag of stuff in the garage just waiting for me to donate it, is that all mine? I don’t care if it is stolen, I don’t worry about it, I don’t fixate on any of those things.  Is something still mine when I don’t want it anymore?

My Stuffed Animals: Were my most precious belongings as a kid, I literally had hundreds of them. Each one I cared for, named, took turns playing with them and cuddling them. Now, as an adult, they are gone, or still at my Mom’s I don’t even know. I don’t care. They are worthless to me. But won’t this happen to everything? Shit I care about now, will be worthless to me later. So why the intermediate attachment, fixation, obsession? Is it mine when I don’t care about it anymore? When my love and desire for it is so momentary?

My Body: Is fat Alana mine when I value thin Alana? Is sick Alana mine when I want healthy Alana. Right now, when I am sick, fat, a part of me thinks that other thin, healthy Alana is more me. I’m just temporarily fat and sick Alana, on my way back to becoming real (thin and healthy) Alana. If I become terminally ill and my body doesn’t revert back to healthy Alana then will sick Alana be mine?  How can I even be more mine some of the time? Is mine based only on what I value, what I identify as?

So where is this mine? Is it like identity, value, is it in my head? Maybe in the minds of others? Is it constant and, if not, what does that mean?

I expect my objects to serve me. To make my life easier. To define my identity for myself and others. But what about all those times they make life more difficult? When they need fixing or finding or cleaning and care? What about when they don’t define me, as I want to be, when someone sees the clothes and thinks whore, the car and thinks excessive, the body and thinks fat?

Present Day Alana  looks around at her car, house, clothes, body, and not one of these things seems worth being enslaved. And yet, still, somehow, the whole kit-n-kaboodle of me and mine keeps driving me forward, ensnaring me in the trap of this world. I hope, I aspire, I dedicate the merit of this post, this blog, of my entire practice, of anything good I have ever done in my life to being free of me and mine.