Whatever

Whatever.

Lately, when I hear that word used, it sounds so insincere.  It had been a while since I had used it with that drawn out inflection, whAAAtEver, with the intent of driving home indifference and disdain.  But it had come up in conversation, and I was reminded of the fun that you can have with that attitude.  Except that the conversations that I noticed it used in were incongruous with the attitude – it was used deliberately to try and convey indifference to something that the person actually really did care about.  My six year old, with a budding appreciation for attitude, was enjoying its use that way.  Fun.  Indifference and detachment as a defense got me thinking about my own recent insights about my attachments, a topic that I have been stewing on for a few weeks.

I had never been too attached to things, and if anything, probably didn’t pay enough attention to my things as I should – so I started with that.  What would I do without my car?  Though named finally, it was replacable,  but replcement would be difficult and painful and I would have to give up some activities.  Hmm, I guess I had some attachments to those activities.  I need to go surfing? That doesn’t sound right.  I felt the need to surf go away.  My happiness was not connected to surfing, though I enjoyed it a lot.

I upped the stakes a little higher: what about my health?  If I wasn’t able to go outside and play, or felt sick, does that mean I couldn’t be happy? I wouldn’t want to give up happiness because I didn’t have my health.  That’s when I would need it the most! I felt a little lighter. 

I thought about my friends, new and old.  I had a strange attachment to my friends.  I have usually kept a few close ones, they would rotate in and out over time.  I didn’t feel like I had a lot of attachments to my friends, but that didn’t quite feel true.  When I was younger, I remember thinking I should travel and maybe live in another city for a while, or go see the world.  I remember worrying about giving up my friends.  The thing was, I ended up letting them recede into the background anyway.  I think at that time, I was attached to the belief that I needed those friends.  I guess I just had fear.

I thought about the friends I had now.  I knew they could easily go.  I felt a kind of clingy desperation slide away as my need for my friends dissolved.  I began to see that losing the attachments was not the same as losing the thing itself.  Rather than collecting and clinging to my need for friends, I could choose to be in the moment with them.  My relationships could be an act of will, a choice.  Loosening my attachments to my friends was not losing the friends, it was letting go of a neediness that wasn’t based on truth but fear.

Could I let go of my attachments to my kids?  That was a harder question.  My kids could be taken from me, or die…I could lose them. Could I recover from that? I knew I could, it happened all the time and in terrible ways to others who continued to live their lives, but it was still a hard question.  It helped a little to remember the realization that if my relationships weren’t based on needy attachment, then they would be maintained by a continuous choice.  That felt like a stronger, truer, more authentic way to experience relationships.  Its harder to take something for granted if you are continuously choosing it.  Its so easy to walk through life sleepily following a scripted role rather than deliberately staying present and aware.  My children weren’t requirements for my happiness, they don’t make me who I am.  I love them dearly, but they are not here to fulfill my needs.

Questioning my attachments was about changing a perspective, an attitude.  It wasn’t about taking on a false attitude of disdain or indifference: ‘whatever’, it was about seeing more of the truth.  Many of the things I had attachments to were not really under my control at all, and I could lose any of them at anytime.  If I lost those things, I would be ok — I may be disappointed, sad, or worse, but I would be ok, I would still be me. 

D brought up something she had heard recently, I can’t remember her exact wording but the gist was that there is freedom in stability.  That having roots gives us the strength to stretch for more.  At first it seemed to conflict with what I was learning about freedom found in losing attachments.  How do you get more attached than having roots?  Constructing a life that supports and comforts you and gives you enjoyment and strength and stability isn’t something to avoid for fear of developing attachments.  There is value in surrounding ourselves with people that we want to be around and things we enjoy and opportunities for the future —  we just need to remember that those things are not what make us who we are.  We should choose the things and people in our lives because it is best for us to do so, not because of the fear of what we would be or do without them.

Fear.

Whatever?