Lessons in Detachment

​by Conlee Ricketts
Traditions all around me are crumbling to the ground: Weddings, funerals, birthdays, graduations, baby showers, gender reveal parties…

Currently I’m mourning the loss of “the graduation ceremony.”  A ceremony that is steeped in so many institutional traditions that both students and parents anticipate what it will be like potentially years ahead of the event.  I have attended many different graduation ceremonies across the school systems I’ve worked and the college I attended. I’ve come to a conclusion; the grander the production and deeper the traditions, the harder the emotional blow of this type of loss. The loss of a ceremony due to the need for social distancing, quarantines, and staying away from one another in order to protect one another.

It feels overwhelmingly terrible, sad, and hurtful. All the work done to help students feel celebrated is amazing. But it can’t really “fix” the sadness and feelings of loss.  And it shouldn’t.  I’m a firm believer in feeling the pain, acknowledging it exists and has a place in my personal journey, and therefore deserves some bit of honoring the very fact that it hurts so damn much.

Once I honor my pain, my “survivor-nature” kicks in and tries to figure out how to avoid this type of pain in the future.  For that, I turn to my very basic-toddler level understanding of Buddhism. Being alive means I will feel pain and/or suffer; a lot of the pain I feel I am likely creating myself—typically by my nature of wanting things to be other than the way they are. So, to ease my pain and suffering I need to learn to detach from the outcomes I “demand” and “want” and accept things as they are.

Sounds pretty simple right?  Hahaha….wait a minute while I stop rolling my damn eyes.

So, being fairly pragmatic I need to start making a list. My list of things I should start detaching myself from right now, so I can (maybe) prevent or at least, lessen the level of sorrow and grief I'm feeling right now.

My child will be starting her senior year of high school in August under what I can only imagine will be uncertain and/or unusual.  Will there be Friday night football games for her marching band to perform at half-time? Will she get a Senior Night in the stadium under the lights? Will she finish out her senior year at home just like this year? Her summer band camp, parades, and street concerts have already been canceled so “the last time” to enjoy those already happened.  We just didn’t know at the time it was “the last time.” She couldn’t wear the awesome dress we picked out for her Junior Prom; will there even be any dances or Senior Prom?

To prepare myself for the potential loss of these traditions by acknowledging that the loss may happen is the only way for me to detach from the outcome. Every year at Senior Night in the football stadium I would get teary-eyed and imagine my daughter surrounded by all of us celebrating her final year in Marching Band.  It would be a lie to say that I can easily detach from this; I can’t.  But, I need to have my list to emotionally prepare for the potential of all these “losses.”

My thoughts are that the list is helping me. I'm certain I will still be blindsided by some “loss” that didn’t make it on my list, but if I can tell myself today, “Yes, this may happen,” then I have already taken a single step toward detaching from the outcome.
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My full heart goes out to everyone suffering any type of unexpected loss right now. Take time to feel this and take care of yourself.  Just know that someone out there is thinking of you.  -xoxo Conlee

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