You Only Lose What You Cling To

Recently when my husband and I were going over our insurance options, I had an interesting realization. When we came to renters insurance to discuss how much we wanted to pay into it, I looked around our apartment and envisioned what it'd be like if we somehow lost everything. How would I feel? How would it affect us? It wasn't actually hard to visualize because it had already pretty much happened once before.

You see, only a few months after I decided that I wanted to adopt a simpler lifestyle, my husband suddenly got a new job a few states over. We had to move quickly, and couldn't afford to bring all of our stuff with us. So we took the necessities that we could carry, and headed off to our new home. We lived in that home for an entire summer, and never got around to buying replacements for what we had left behind. We had no furniture (except a table and two chairs); we slept on an air mattress. We also never got around to getting Internet hooked up. I was half way through my pregnancy and couldn't fit into my old clothes, so I bought 3 basic maternity tees, 1 pair of maternity jeans, and 1 very stretchy black dress; that was all I wore that summer.

In those few months I learned how very little I needed to be happy. I remember feeling so at peace--so free. I began meditating for the first time in my life. I went for walks twice a day. I spent time at the library, and read all kinds of educational books. I went to the park. Got more done, yet, somehow, got more rest. That turned out to be one of the happiest summers of my life.

So this time, as I looked over my possessions, I realized I had very little attachment to them, and I loved that fact. For me, losing everything was a wonderful gift.

"You only lose what you cling to."

-Unknown (possibly Buddha)