Lost

I'm sure I'm not alone when I tell you that I've lost many things in my life. The biggest was when I lost my brother. One minute he was there with me, the next he was gone and a new life began forming without him. I had been so identified with my role as the big sister of two brothers that it was painful to figure out who I was without him.

I can think of another time when I lost my senior ring. Wow. My parents paid a lot for me to be able to wear it and I just lost it. I panicked and took hours to go back to parking lots to search. Eventually, a friend and I found it in the grass by my car. However, for those few hours nothing could take my mind off of what I'd lost. I was so identified with the possession of it (or maybe the amount of trouble I'd be in) that I thought of nothing else.

As some of you know, I've finished reading A New Earth and have now moved on to listening to the podcasts while I run in the mornings. At first it was only for 20 minutes, but now I'm up to working out about 45 minutes to an hour each morning at 5:30. I recently took note of this quote, "Do you realize that you will have to let go at some point, perhaps quite soon? How much more time do you need before you will be ready to let go? Will you become less when you let go of it? Has who you are become diminished by the loss? "

This morning I had to ask myself these same questions. My diamond from my engagement ring fell out without my knowledge. A student pointed it out to me and I immediately grew tense. I thought to myself, "How will I ever find that? I've been to the track, 2 schools, a few parking lots and another house all the time getting in and out, in and out. That was just from 5:30-8 am." As I was calling Paul, another student said, "Is this it?" SHE FOUND IT! :)

But then I started thinking that having that ring or not doesn't make me any less married. It is greatly sentimental to me. It doesn't erase my relationship with Paul, though. It is not/was not my identity. I would be able to live w/out it. After all, I am not my things. None of us are, but so many of us believe that our worth is in what we own, what we have. Many people believe that just because some people don't own the best, they are not worthy of conversation, love, or courtesy.

I brought up the above quote for the simple fact that the subject was actually a story about a lady who lost her grandmother's ring. She lost it, but in turn learned that she was not her things. She learned that "Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at this moment."