The sunscreen I diligently use, depend on every day isn’t mine — it is something I use to protect myself, but it is also leeching chemicals that can harm me through my skin. My blood isn’t mine, it is supposed to protect me, nourish my tissues and organs, but it also carries lipids to my heart and clogs my arteries. Is something that acts against me –threatens my life, mine?

My skin cream is not mine. It is a consumable good. I rely on it to have smooth skin, but I don’t even know when it is going to run out and leave me high and dry. My body is not mine. It is consumable. I rely on it to have an alana identity, an alana life, but I don’t even know when it is going to run out and leave me high and dry. Is something I rely on, but that can end at any moment really mine?

My phone is not mine. I bought it for one reason only: A long battery life. I wanted an item I could depend on. That would keep me safe and informed wherever I went. That I didn’t have to worry about just leaving me high and dry midday in some foreign city. For this feature I was willing to tolerate all the other shortcomings and suckiness of the phone — ugly, bad camera, bulky, expensive, bad UI. But in just a year the phone’s batter life is significantly diminished. Well before I think it is time for it to go. Now I have a sucky phone that doesn’t even get me through a day. How is it mine if it disappointed my expectations, forced me to accept suffering and tradeoffs and didn’t even deliver the thing most important to me.

My body is not mine. I have it for one reason: to have an Alana identity and Alana life/future consistent with my story, with my hopes and imagination. Obviously, its primary directive is to last, to stay functional so I can keep counting on it, so I have it –the necessary ingredient –for my future fantasy. I tolerate the shitshow of having a body –the pain, the filth, the bleeding pussy, the feces, the continuous need to eat and sleep, the humiliation of sagging skin and thickening waist. All for this one feature. And yet, here I am at 41 –way before I think it should be time –and my body is showing real signs of being on the fritz. Threatening to not be there to get me through too many more days: with inflammation, autoreactivity, ridiculously high cholesterols, strange new growths, how much longer can I count on this thing? How is it mine if it disappoints my expectations: If I am forced to tolerate all the downsides and I don’t even feel satisfied with the “upside’ I traded it for. When that upside is threatened too soon, every day and that threat is yet another cause of suffering in this life.

My tile grout is not mine: No matter how I care for it, how I scrub and bleach, after a few weeks it becomes moldy again. It changes form because a moist warm environment is the perfect solid place for spores of mold to move onto and grow. It changes form despite my desire or my efforts. My gut is not my own. No matter how I feed it, control diet, give it meds, it has bacterial overgrowth. It has changed form because the moist dark warm environment of the gut is perfect for bacterial to grow. They have moved from the large intestine to the small intestine and now the 4e bacteria consume the 4e food I eat and proliferate, causing gas, and eroding the intestinal lining so they leak into my blood and circulate through my body. This happens despite my desire or my effort. This happens even though this shift in stasis, in the elements of my body and the bacteria within it, is a threat to my health and my life. Something that doesn’t care about my efforts or desires, that endangers the thing I hold most dear is clearly not something I an call my own. I rely on my gut, as long as I am able, but a change in circumstance, in bacterial composition, makes it less reliable. It makes it something that can act against me.

My skin is not my own: If it were my own it would represent me. It would show the world the qualities I value, I imagine myself to have, especially beauty. Self control. But today, on one of the rare occasions I will see friends, I have a cold sore on my nose. What is more embarrassing that a contagious, ugly disease coming from my nose. I feel so self conscious, the opposite of beautiful (in my mind) –diseased. Clearly my skin is not manifesting my ideal self, the characteristics I want to project. It isn’t the me I want to be.

My food is not my own, if it were mine then when I had craved it and coveted it and gone out of the way to obtain it, it would nourish me. But last night, before I even had the opportunity to digest and be nourished by my first high calorie meal in weeks, I was vomiting it up. It had made me sick. If it is mine, wouldn’t it return my efforts with nourishment instead of illness? It is like my body, when I workout hard and hurt myself, shouldn’t my body reward my efforts with health and strength not pain. Or when I go get medical tests and find something may be wrong, shouldn’t my diligence be rewarded not send me into a cycle of torcher and fear? If this body were mine, it would sustain me, it would let me manifest the self and life I want. It wouldn’t cause me pain and suffering.

If my blinds were my own, they wouldn’t become cracked and broken. They wouldn’t look ghetto and cheap — the opposite of how I imagine myself. They wouldn’t be an embarrassment I fear others seeing. If my blinds were mine they couldn’t make my whole home feel uncomfortable, a reminder of how little control I really have, even in the space I live. This face is not my own. If it were it wouldn’t be blotched and sagging and there wouldn’t be a fat lump under my eye. If this face were really mine it would look beautiful –the way I imagine myself, instead of worn and withered, a testament to my inability to control even this one single body, the space I inhabit, the most “mine” of all things I call my own. It wouldn’t be an embarrassment, that was plain for all to see. A failure that glared back at me in the bathroom mirror each time I go in to pee. No this face is not mine, it isn’t how I imagine it, it isn’t dependable or keepable, it isn’t and affirmation of my control or uniqueness or specialness it is , with its sagging and wrinkling, like every other face, a reminder it is not mine and it can’t be who I am.

My coravan canister is not my own, it can run out at any time. It is a disposable good, something I can rely on only for a little while and then, at a time I have no insight or transparency into it ends. I need to replace it with another if I want the functionality of preserving wine again. This is exactly like my body. It is a disposable product. I can rely on it for a time and then, with no real insight or transparency into timing, it will end. Then if I want to be in this world again, I have to find a way to replace it, secure the effort and expense to obtain yet another consumable good.