The Loss Continues...

Thought not as significant of a loss as losing my grandmother's War Ration booklet, it is a loss none the less.  I visited the Yorkshire Sculpture Park yesterday (YSP) which is absolutely wonderful.  Somewhere in the field between one gallery and another I managed to drop my cardigan - mind you it's neither expensive or glamorous, but happens to be something of a staple to my wardrobe, such as it is.  And as I was pondering its loss and the pit-in-the-stomach that comes with every loss, it got me thinking on material possessions.  See, when I made the decision to come to England, I was looking at it as a shedding of old skin, a renewal, a period of self re-discovery.  In some ways, losing things is like shedding skin and perhaps I should lament my recent losses about as much as a snake would were it his skin.  I guess I've really been thinking about this for some time - when I was in the States and in the process of "selling away my life" and packing up what I thought at the time to be the bare minimum I thought about this very issue every day.  Material possessions have a significant hold on our life - they have more power then we sometimes like to admit.  I don't know if I like it.  (I guess I never really have - I remember having these thoughts back when I was 19, too...it's a continuous theme in my life I think).  

What does this mean for me?  I'm not sure I know.  I don't know if I'm ready to just lose pieces of myself as I walk down the street, like frumpy and odd-shapen bread crumbs keeping track of my journey; still, I think it may not be altogether unhealthy to accept the losses as they happen and acknowledge them with little more than a shrug