I moved almost every year as a child, too. I wish I had thought to call it “restless migration” in my memoir. I love that description, and this whole essay, Jeannine! My mom finally admitted to it being essentially that, after originally snipping at me that it was because she was always seeking a better school for me, or a better job for her. But long after I was gone and she didn’t want to work anymore, she kept moving. (My mom is in her 80s and keeps certain things boxed up for her “next move,” which I’m betting will never come at this point.) All the packing and unpacking trained me to not collect any more than I need, though I’ve learned to splurge some in the last decade.
“Each move left behind a version of me who might have belonged there, who might have grown into something steadier had I not become the new girl once again come September.” I think about this, too. The first place I lived long enough to love was Denver, and I often think about who I would be now had I not moved to Florida in middle school. I know I’d be an entirely different person, with different life-long (if that means from high school on) friends and a different husband.
How I love this essay! Like you, I too "sometimes hold too long, too tightly" to very small things that don't matter at all. And to big things that matter a lot. I have let go of many jobs throughout my life, but I've only "lost" two, as in my position was eliminated two times, decades apart. Supposedly, neither of these cuts had anything to do with me, personally, although it was hard not to take them personally and not to feel crushed. I was crushed, both times. While I was reading your essay, I kept thinking about a poem I have always loved about loss, Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art": https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47536/one-art. Thank you for sharing your essay and helping me to think about loss in a new way, one in which loss "teaches us, over and over, how to see."
This is a beautiful reflection on loss, Jeannine. You’ve captured so well how loss leads us to understand ourselves and the world in new ways, always remaining with whatever version of ourselves we’re becoming.
This is so beautifully written. My father was in the Air Force and we moved around so much so that I learned to grieve at a young age for all the friends and homes I had to leave behind each time we moved. I also have lost numerous cats, dogs, gerbils, fish and a beloved bearded dragon.
I never thought I’d consider sending my baby girl to college a loss, but it most certainly is. Nobody in the house needs a ride anywhere anymore. Nobody asks about dinner. The sound of her voice floating through the hallway has moved to some stupid dorm a thousand miles away. Thanks for helping me find these words, Jeannine! The Arithmetic of Lost Things is beautiful.
Jeannine. What a gorgeous gorgeous essay. It touched me deeply, and has me pondering what I’ve lost. I agree with you: in loss is the actual living. We are defined as much by what we lose as what we keep. I’ve intentionally lost a marriage, let it slip away. A loss tinged with surrender and sadness and liberation. I’ve lost a mother, a father, grandparents, a best friend who was only 46. I’ve lost friends along the way, not many, but these are the breakages I remember. I’ve lost countless homes (always intentionally, and that’s fortunate). I’ve lost all the toys and clothing and objects of my childhood. But luckily I have the teddy bears my mother started collecting at age 70, because she’d always wanted to collect teddy bears.🧸 My sister and my daughters and I are now in possession of these precious furry creatures. When I hug one, so much that had been lost comes back to me. Teddy bear magic.
In a subversive gratitude way, I am grateful for loss, for death, for loss and death are healthy, natural rhythms of life. Cancer is a perversion that overtakes a cell's natural rhythm and ability to die, which is called apoptosis, a controlled process the body uses to eliminate unneeded or abnormal cells. Just as you say, when the lesson is learned, or unneeded, it disappears. It dies.
Jeannine ♥️♥️♥️ This: “My father, I lost more slowly: first to divorce, then to his second family, and finally to the long ache of distance and disinterest. Maybe the latter was regret in disguise.”
I’ve been cocooning in grief over a similar situation. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say I’ve been depressed, weighed down by the grief I tried to deny. This weekend I finally let my sorrow flow. I feel lighter today. And though I will always carry the enormity of this loss, I also feel more whole.
Thank you for writing about loss in a way that honours how it shapes us without toxic positivity—and inviting us do so, too.
Aw, thanks Jeannine. I love seeing you at the collectives. And I may be commenting less these days but the full force of my love for you and this community is in every ♥️on your posts.
It occurred to me that I have experienced at least three different types of loss experience:
1. The loss of things - as you described losing the bobby pin, where you contemplate the moment that it slipped from being near you. In my case - when I turned 21, my parents gave me a silver key thing in a velvet bag, which I was unimpressed with at the time but it stayed in the bags of stuff I moved around with. My brain (ADHD / childhood trauma) only recognises concrete useful things so I wondered at the value of this fake key. In one of my chaotic crowded houses as a single mum of 4 teenagers when the house was too small and some of our stuff was in the leaky shed, I threw out a suitcase of what I thought was hoarded junk (precious baby clothes that had got wet and gone mouldy). Years later I realised two things -
(1) I think the silver key was in that suitcase which I hadn’t been able to open and check at the time, because of what I might find and grieve over, and (2) I think that key was an ounce of actual silver, but nobody told me - I guess they just thought I would know, but there’s so much that went past my odd little brain. I often wonder where it is now - maybe returned to the earth in landfill.
2. The loss of people and pets you love - death leaves it’s own unfillable void, and this grief maintains connections, however you may find or see them.
3. The “rug pulled out from underneath you” sort of loss - houses and relationships and things that you expected to last for longer that “turn on a sixpence” and leave you in freefall. Where the future is uncertain.
There may be other categories of loss but these are mine.
This really struck me as similar to something I’ve been thinking about: “Each move left behind a version of me who might have belonged there,” since I just attended a class reunion. We moved just before my senior year, but I remain extremely close with this group of classmates, and have for over 60 years. As they speak of that last year of school, and of transitioning to adulthood together, I realize how much I lost out on as I tried to establish myself as the ‘new girl’ once again in a new setting with new people. Those experiences I might have had definitely changed the trajectory of my life. Sadly, as I age, the losses pile up. If there is a lesson in all of the losses, it is that life does go on, and we become more resilient with each major loss.
"I’ve lost countless keys, a perfectly good Cuisinart, an expensive Le Creuset Dutch oven that was a gift from my former mother-in-law, whom I also lost." Oh geez the levels of this sentence. From the relatively mundane to the completely irreplaceable.
"I wonder what my lost things have tried to teach me. Maybe that everything is on loan. Maybe that our task is not to keep but to notice." If we notice, then perhaps (just perhaps), that version of ourselves is fixed a little more firmly as the foundation of the next versions that are to come.
What possibilities exist in what we've lost, both if we look for them, shadow them, and if we let them go.
I'll be thinking about this essay for a while. Thanks.
A beautiful, deeply moving essay, Jeannine! I really resonate with what you have written here: “I’ve lost bitterness, mostly, about my stepfather, about my parents’ failures. Not all of it, but most. And with it, I’ve lost the will to keep stoking that fire. That feels like an earned kind of loss, the kind that makes room for light.” I reached a point where I realized that all of the past-looking, rehashing what would never be with my parents was a huge hindrance in my life. As much I wanted a different outcome, I had to learn to surrender and accept the unacceptable. And that’s when the weight lifted and light poured in 💛
Your writing reminds me of my favorite music. I shared a playlist once with a colleague, when we didn't really know each other, and she listened to it and checked in with me after, thinking maybe I was a little depressed. I had to explain to her that my favorite music is so beautiful precisely because of the ache that is sometimes more covert, sometimes more overt, but always there, that human ache that comes from loving and losing and being alive, and then the ache that comes from bearing witness to the beautiful things made from that place. Those songs are always my favorite songs.
I moved almost every year as a child, too. I wish I had thought to call it “restless migration” in my memoir. I love that description, and this whole essay, Jeannine! My mom finally admitted to it being essentially that, after originally snipping at me that it was because she was always seeking a better school for me, or a better job for her. But long after I was gone and she didn’t want to work anymore, she kept moving. (My mom is in her 80s and keeps certain things boxed up for her “next move,” which I’m betting will never come at this point.) All the packing and unpacking trained me to not collect any more than I need, though I’ve learned to splurge some in the last decade.
“Each move left behind a version of me who might have belonged there, who might have grown into something steadier had I not become the new girl once again come September.” I think about this, too. The first place I lived long enough to love was Denver, and I often think about who I would be now had I not moved to Florida in middle school. I know I’d be an entirely different person, with different life-long (if that means from high school on) friends and a different husband.
How I love this essay! Like you, I too "sometimes hold too long, too tightly" to very small things that don't matter at all. And to big things that matter a lot. I have let go of many jobs throughout my life, but I've only "lost" two, as in my position was eliminated two times, decades apart. Supposedly, neither of these cuts had anything to do with me, personally, although it was hard not to take them personally and not to feel crushed. I was crushed, both times. While I was reading your essay, I kept thinking about a poem I have always loved about loss, Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art": https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47536/one-art. Thank you for sharing your essay and helping me to think about loss in a new way, one in which loss "teaches us, over and over, how to see."
This is a beautiful reflection on loss, Jeannine. You’ve captured so well how loss leads us to understand ourselves and the world in new ways, always remaining with whatever version of ourselves we’re becoming.
Thank you so much, Tracey xo
This is so beautifully written. My father was in the Air Force and we moved around so much so that I learned to grieve at a young age for all the friends and homes I had to leave behind each time we moved. I also have lost numerous cats, dogs, gerbils, fish and a beloved bearded dragon.
I never thought I’d consider sending my baby girl to college a loss, but it most certainly is. Nobody in the house needs a ride anywhere anymore. Nobody asks about dinner. The sound of her voice floating through the hallway has moved to some stupid dorm a thousand miles away. Thanks for helping me find these words, Jeannine! The Arithmetic of Lost Things is beautiful.
I love how you've been deeply thinking and feeling about these things for a very long time. Your words are healing as they confirm our losses.
Jeannine. What a gorgeous gorgeous essay. It touched me deeply, and has me pondering what I’ve lost. I agree with you: in loss is the actual living. We are defined as much by what we lose as what we keep. I’ve intentionally lost a marriage, let it slip away. A loss tinged with surrender and sadness and liberation. I’ve lost a mother, a father, grandparents, a best friend who was only 46. I’ve lost friends along the way, not many, but these are the breakages I remember. I’ve lost countless homes (always intentionally, and that’s fortunate). I’ve lost all the toys and clothing and objects of my childhood. But luckily I have the teddy bears my mother started collecting at age 70, because she’d always wanted to collect teddy bears.🧸 My sister and my daughters and I are now in possession of these precious furry creatures. When I hug one, so much that had been lost comes back to me. Teddy bear magic.
In a subversive gratitude way, I am grateful for loss, for death, for loss and death are healthy, natural rhythms of life. Cancer is a perversion that overtakes a cell's natural rhythm and ability to die, which is called apoptosis, a controlled process the body uses to eliminate unneeded or abnormal cells. Just as you say, when the lesson is learned, or unneeded, it disappears. It dies.
Such a beautiful, tender, and unique piece on loss. I love this Jeannine ❤️
Thank you so much, Vicki <3
So much here to consider. Parents, homes, sibling, spouse, pets, innocence, and the trinkets of living. I will write my story of losses. Thank you!
Jeannine ♥️♥️♥️ This: “My father, I lost more slowly: first to divorce, then to his second family, and finally to the long ache of distance and disinterest. Maybe the latter was regret in disguise.”
I’ve been cocooning in grief over a similar situation. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say I’ve been depressed, weighed down by the grief I tried to deny. This weekend I finally let my sorrow flow. I feel lighter today. And though I will always carry the enormity of this loss, I also feel more whole.
Thank you for writing about loss in a way that honours how it shapes us without toxic positivity—and inviting us do so, too.
Monika, first, love seeing you (I miss you!) and also sending love as you walk through sorrow. And thank you for this note. xo
Aw, thanks Jeannine. I love seeing you at the collectives. And I may be commenting less these days but the full force of my love for you and this community is in every ♥️on your posts.
Thanks Jeannine, for the contemplation of loss.
It occurred to me that I have experienced at least three different types of loss experience:
1. The loss of things - as you described losing the bobby pin, where you contemplate the moment that it slipped from being near you. In my case - when I turned 21, my parents gave me a silver key thing in a velvet bag, which I was unimpressed with at the time but it stayed in the bags of stuff I moved around with. My brain (ADHD / childhood trauma) only recognises concrete useful things so I wondered at the value of this fake key. In one of my chaotic crowded houses as a single mum of 4 teenagers when the house was too small and some of our stuff was in the leaky shed, I threw out a suitcase of what I thought was hoarded junk (precious baby clothes that had got wet and gone mouldy). Years later I realised two things -
(1) I think the silver key was in that suitcase which I hadn’t been able to open and check at the time, because of what I might find and grieve over, and (2) I think that key was an ounce of actual silver, but nobody told me - I guess they just thought I would know, but there’s so much that went past my odd little brain. I often wonder where it is now - maybe returned to the earth in landfill.
2. The loss of people and pets you love - death leaves it’s own unfillable void, and this grief maintains connections, however you may find or see them.
3. The “rug pulled out from underneath you” sort of loss - houses and relationships and things that you expected to last for longer that “turn on a sixpence” and leave you in freefall. Where the future is uncertain.
There may be other categories of loss but these are mine.
🤍
Wow, Sally, that key! And this beautiful meditation on the spheres of loss.
🙏🏻
This really struck me as similar to something I’ve been thinking about: “Each move left behind a version of me who might have belonged there,” since I just attended a class reunion. We moved just before my senior year, but I remain extremely close with this group of classmates, and have for over 60 years. As they speak of that last year of school, and of transitioning to adulthood together, I realize how much I lost out on as I tried to establish myself as the ‘new girl’ once again in a new setting with new people. Those experiences I might have had definitely changed the trajectory of my life. Sadly, as I age, the losses pile up. If there is a lesson in all of the losses, it is that life does go on, and we become more resilient with each major loss.
This is tender and beautiful, Sally. Sending love to you.
"I’ve lost countless keys, a perfectly good Cuisinart, an expensive Le Creuset Dutch oven that was a gift from my former mother-in-law, whom I also lost." Oh geez the levels of this sentence. From the relatively mundane to the completely irreplaceable.
"I wonder what my lost things have tried to teach me. Maybe that everything is on loan. Maybe that our task is not to keep but to notice." If we notice, then perhaps (just perhaps), that version of ourselves is fixed a little more firmly as the foundation of the next versions that are to come.
What possibilities exist in what we've lost, both if we look for them, shadow them, and if we let them go.
I'll be thinking about this essay for a while. Thanks.
Thank you so much, Nica <3
A beautiful, deeply moving essay, Jeannine! I really resonate with what you have written here: “I’ve lost bitterness, mostly, about my stepfather, about my parents’ failures. Not all of it, but most. And with it, I’ve lost the will to keep stoking that fire. That feels like an earned kind of loss, the kind that makes room for light.” I reached a point where I realized that all of the past-looking, rehashing what would never be with my parents was a huge hindrance in my life. As much I wanted a different outcome, I had to learn to surrender and accept the unacceptable. And that’s when the weight lifted and light poured in 💛
Absolutely yes to this. Thank you, Lisa!
Well, fuck. It’s such a pleasure to read your writing. And since we are all always losing things, this is a universally helpful reflection.
Also: Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass! I hunted that record down so it is back in my own collection.
Hahahaha it took me a hot minute to find online what I was remembering, and I know that's it -- and, also, thank you <3
Your writing reminds me of my favorite music. I shared a playlist once with a colleague, when we didn't really know each other, and she listened to it and checked in with me after, thinking maybe I was a little depressed. I had to explain to her that my favorite music is so beautiful precisely because of the ache that is sometimes more covert, sometimes more overt, but always there, that human ache that comes from loving and losing and being alive, and then the ache that comes from bearing witness to the beautiful things made from that place. Those songs are always my favorite songs.