I have written about “attachments” before. I embedded a video on Love vs. Attachment a few months ago. I think I might finally understand something about myself and attaching. For the longest time, I believed that I had a hard time attaching to people and things. My ex accused me of not being attached and having attachment issues. This is because she thinks attachment is love and wanted me to attach to her to show my love. Truth is, I did get attached. I was attached to her very quickly. I don’t have a hard time attaching.
I learned this because I have been fostering dogs. Dogs are not people, I know, but they are a symbol of relationship for me at this time. Over my lifetime, I have had many relationships, friends, family, partners, spouses, pets etc. I have had relationships that came, and then went. Some lasted a long time. One of my friends has been with me longer than others, 16 years this past summer. Most of those relationships, though, came and went over time. I changed friend groups several times as a child. I had many different “best” friends over my lifetime. I had romantic relationships, some for many years, some for months. I had always thought that I didn’t attach to these relationships because when they went away, I did not “suffer” like other people seemed to do when their relationships ended in some way.
Some relationships ended when people died. While when I care for someone, and they die, I feel sadness and miss them, I do not suffer from their death. I never consider it something for me to “get over”, deal with or heal from. This is also true for other relationships that have ended for different reasons, break ups, people moving away, rejection etc. I have always thought there was something wrong with me because I saw other people suffer so much when people died or moved on in another way, because when my relationships ended, I didn’t suffer. I thought I couldn’t attach to people, which meant, I could not love them. That was because I also thought that sense of attachment was connected to loving people.
I am not saying I don’t get sad. I am not saying that I don’t miss people from time to time. I am not saying I don’t feel loss when things end. I am saying, I don’t suffer or feel a need to fix or heal from the feelings I have. Is that because I am not attached? I actually don’t think so anymore. I think it is because I also know how to let go.
Back to fostering dogs. I have had 5 dogs with me over the past 6 weeks. Over that time 2 came and went within 2 weeks each. 1 came and went overnight. 1 came and went in less than one week, and the last one is still here and has been for a couple of days. She will not be here long though. She is beautiful, young, well behaved, and sweet. Each of the dogs had their own personalities, quirks, attitudes, needs and abilities. Some needed a lot of help and attention to training. Some, like the current one, just needed love. I have loved all of them. I also felt attachment to all of them. I thought that I could keep them and love them forever. As a foster parent, if you keep every dog you love, you have a house full of dogs. I started fostering because I believed that I would not get attached and not suffer when I had to give up the dogs to new homes. I was wrong though. I do get attached, and I do feel some suffering when they leave.
I was right that I can do this though. I love them like they were my forever dog. I give them my attention and care. I teach them and treat them like family. I put loving energy into finding the right home for them to go to, where I think they will be successful and be loved. And when it is time, I let them go, and I am sad. I miss them for a day or so. I don’t suffer that long. I suffer for a moment when I release them and see them go. Then I just feel the love and peace of their missing presence in my home. Eventually that fades, and I just remember them fondly. Could I do this over and over and over again? I could. I am. And I enjoy it, even when I am sad as they leave. I don’t see that as not being attached. I see it as being able to also let go when it is time to do so. I also do not see as suffering at all.
One of the songs that was meaningful to me as a child, and still is, is the one about a season for everything. It is also a Bible verse and was one of my favorites of those too. For everything there is a time and a season, a proper existence and purpose. When the time for something ends, if we let it go and end as it should, we do not suffer. If while we are in a thing, relationship, job, whatever, we worry about when it will end. We suffer even before it ends. After it ends, if we lament and struggle to know why it ended, to wish it did not end, to want it to return, then we also suffer. Suffering is not about attaching to the present moment in the present moment. It is about staying attached to the previous moment after it is gone and worrying about losing this moment while it is still here. It isn’t a lack of ability to attach that seems to be my “problem”, it is my ability to let go of those attachments at the right moment, that is my skill.
My ex would say that I never loved her because it was so easy for me to let go of her. I disagree. I loved her deeply. I felt attached to her and our life together. I love her still, though it is much different in how I show it now. When it was time for that relationship to end, I knew it before I was able to let it go. I was done, but tried not to be for a while. I also know she was done, but not sure she will ever know that she was. It was time for it to be over. She will probably not ever see that it was supposed to be as it was. It would not have been loving of me to stay beyond the ending. That would have just caused more suffering for both of us, trying to hold together something that’s time had passed.
With the dogs, that is also a truth. They are here with me for a reason. So that I may find them a home. Would I love to keep all of them, maybe not all of them, but for sure a few of them were that special to me. That is not their purpose in my life, to stay. It is to help them move on to a new thing. Keeping them is not their purpose for me, or mine for them.
I know that there was purpose and reason for my marriage too. I believe that purpose was fulfilled for us. Even the ending of the relationship had purpose for each of our souls’ growth. I hope that she someday stops suffering a loss and can celebrate the purpose in our time together. I know that I do that most of the time. I have said before in my life, not necessarily in this blog, that I don’t think people are meant to be together for their whole lives, or the rest of their lives, which probably means you think that I don’t believe in marriage. That would be inaccurate.
I do believe in marriage. I believe in making a legal commitment to another person to share life, love, expenses, experiences, raise children, etc. I also believe in divorce. That sometimes, many times, that commitment needs to have an end date prior to death. I officiate weddings. I have done 3 so far, and have 2 more in the queue for the next year. I believe these people are ready to get married and make that commitment to each other. Do I think they will stay married forever or until death parts them, I don’t know about that? It is not my role to try to know about that. What I know is right now, in this moment, they want to legally attach themselves together to strengthen their relationship for the purpose of sharing all of those things I mentioned above. There may be a day when the decide that commitment is no longer useful to them or in their lives and get divorced. It will not mean they should not have gotten married now. It will not mean their relationship failed. It will not mean they were wrong for each other, or it was a bad decision. Just as my marriages were not bad, wrong, or failed. They were exactly what they were meant to be, for as long as they were meant to be, and were successful at being what they were meant to be.
My relationships have all been successful in their beginnings and their endings. They served their purpose in life for me and the other person, or dog. There is a season/reason to be in my life, and there is a season/reason for that to end. I don’t always know what the reasons are for things, and that does not matter to me. I just know that there is that and appreciate it always.
I do not have attachment issues. I attach well. I bond and love fully and deeply, people, animals, things from time to time, and then I let them go when it is time to do so. I mourn their time passing, and then I move forward into the next moment of life in which there will be more relationships to create and feel love and attachment for their moment in time. However, I do not suffer those losses. I don’t think that means I have a problem, as my ex so often would tell me, and I started to believe. I think it means I do it the Buddhist way, the flow way, the way it is meant to be way. I have a skill not a deficit, and that feels a lot better than thinking I have a problem, right?
So, go ahead, be attached, feel belonging and connected to people, places, jobs, animals, and when their time ends, be sad for that, and then let it go. I also say this a lot, LTSG. Let That Shit Go. I usually use it in the context of bad things we get attached to, not positive things, but it applies here too. Being able to let go of things isn’t a bad thing. It is how we manage our suffering on Earth. People ask me how I am able to do this. I used to think I didn’t get attached in the first place. That isn’t right. I do. I know now that I do, I attach and I love. I just also know when and how to let go. Next article will be more about how I do that. Until then, peace and love.
-Namaste