When I came home, I looked around the apartment to see what I would be willing to part with. It wasn’t that I had attachment issues to anything; it was more like I didn’t feel attached to anything at all. I looked at all the things that it wouldn’t hurt me to leave and understood that being too detached might actually be my problem.

9.

When we gathered again, people had their items covered in Christmas holly or balloons or other festive wrapping they’d found in their houses. We all looked around nervously as Bethanny went to the front of the room. I wondered if others thought this was a stunt, or if they would have to part with the things they loved most. I looked down at the little velvet box I was holding and prepared myself to leave if it wasn’t.

“How do you feel right now?” Bethanny asked, smiling.

We laughed nervously and peered around at each other.

Richard raised his hand. “I waited until the last minute to choose. It wasn’t until last night that I laid everything out.”

“And what happened?”

“I started crying, because I didn’t want to give anything away.”

“That’s your suffering.”

Richard looked at her, open-faced and humble. “I know,” he said.

“Did you even know how attached you were to your objects? Did it surprise you?”

“I’ve carried them around with me through moves, through everything, for years,” Richard said. “Sometimes I think they’re all I have.”

“But in your last days, these objects will be completely meaningless. And if you’re ruled by these objects, you aren’t really free.”

We nodded. We were the children of late capitalism.

“Do you want to be surrounded by all the objects you love when you’re dying? Do you think that’s a good idea?”

She walked up and down the aisles around us. No one answered. We were waiting for her to tell us what to do.

“No,” she said. “It’s not.”

“To see everything you’re leaving behind will only fill you with the gravity of your loss.”

I looked down at my velvet box and turned it around and around in my palm. I hadn’t even bothered to wrap it. I stared at my naked ring finger and the white outline my ring had left.

“Our attachments are what cause our suffering. To detach with love is to free yourself from this suffering. This is what we’re helping our clients through. But we have to step through it first.”

Heads around me nodded. People took notes.