On Losing Things

At the end of February as part of their Morning Newsletter, the New York Times published a piece titled Lost Causes, about losing things.

I read it eagerly because I’d been in the midst of a losing-things cycle. Glasses, keys, my can of pepper spray. I kept finding myself in a state of panic, feeling like I didn’t know where anything was.

Over the years, I’ve become a creature of habit, especially with what’s needed to leave the house. I put things in the same place so that they will be there when I need them. Of course, when this is how you function, putting something down just anywhere, in a place other than its place, it’s gone.

I thought that the NYT column was going to target what I had come to realize: I have been losing things since the start of the year.

But the article went in a different direction. The author, Melissa Kirsch, cited simultaneous losses by multiple friends. I thought she was going to focus on why it was happening to them now, but her point was to consider the lessons of impermanence.

“Oh! Of course! Impermanence! I always forget. The Buddhist writer Jack Kornfield wrote of his teacher holding up a teacup, saying: “To me this cup is already broken. Because I know its fate, I can enjoy it fully here and now. And when it’s gone, it’s gone.” The cup is already broken. The phone and wallet are already lost. We have everything we need. The things we’re afraid of losing are already gone.”

I appreciate this perspective. And yet. I don’t feel like I am in a place to meditate on impermanence. I am stuck on the why of it and I know what that’s all about.

Since January 20th, there have been daily assaults on civil rights and democratic norms. Digesting even one of them becomes almost impossible as on comes another and another and another. We struggle to track what’s happening and make sense of it. Who is being harmed? What’s next? What are long-range implications? What about tomorrow? Who will lose their jobs?

I keep seeing people write versions of: Have we reached the basement yet? Apparently not.

The casual cruelty is numbing. I know lots of people who are either sleeping lots more hours or barely at all.

There is a kind of fog that I think lots of us are functioning in. Some of it is exhaustion. Some of it is disbelief. I have had multiple conversations with friends my age who are just furious that we have been fighting for human rights our entire lives only to have it come to this now.

So it’s no wonder we’re losing things.

Honestly, how could we stay on top of the minutiae of our lives when we have a wanna-be dictator pretending to president?

We can’t. It’s really that simple.

I am trying to keep myself from panicking when things go missing. I stop and retrace my steps, all those usual tools. But mostly, I remind myself that these are not ordinary times. I don’t want to become numb or brittle. If I lose my ability to feel, then I will lose my ability to care and I refuse to lose my humanity.

If you have been experiencing any of this and if you can’t seem to find anything you’ve put down, then know you are in good company. Give yourself grace.

If you want to read about the impermanence of things, the NYT piece is lovely.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/22/briefing/lost-causes.html?smid=url-share

Deep breaths. One day at time.

Peace