What Buddha Meant (I Think)

I keep hearing something on repeat. “Let them.”  Unsure what it meant, I started observing more of other people’s relationships, with their partners, family members, jobs, places. I kept looking outward until I realized I'd ignored the person in the mirror. I should’ve started with myself.

By human nature, we constantly look for something to get attached to. Perhaps it’s a way of confirming that we are alive, connecting to this small world we live in and finding ourselves through the relationships we’ve had. We begin collecting pieces of ourselves long before our first breath. Even before birth, we're already responding to the voices and sounds surrounding us. From that moment on, we never really stop. We borrow habits, beliefs, tastes, fears, and dreams until we become a mosaic of everything we've encountered. A reflection of everything we've been exposed to.

I like to think of it as looking deep into someone else’s eyes, hoping to see ourselves.

A Buddhist quote says “attachment is the root of all misery”. I thought that was an odd saying first. Attachments gave me a sense of identity. I carry pieces of everyone I've known: friends who gave me my hobbies, lovers who changed the music I listen to, cities that shaped the way I dress, books that formed my values, teachers who taught me how to question. What am I without the scraps I stole from all those?

It was poetic in its own way, until I got in too deep and got stuck.

Recently, I began seeing the cost of it. The very attachments that had shaped me were also the ones that hurt me the most. Relationships fell apart. People left. Places I loved changed. Time kept moving, whether I was ready or not. It started when I was about to come back to Turkey, after  living in Mexico for a year. I was missing home and the place I hadn’t left yet at the same time. I was in denial for the longest time; I didn’t want the world to move on without me. It hurt because I wanted to believe I was unforgettable. But realizing only now that it doesn’t matter if you are a ray of sunshine; people do move on. Not because they loved me any less, but because life kept asking them to move forward, just as it would eventually ask the same of me.

It's funny. For someone who resists change so much, I've spent an awful lot of time moving from one country to another. I wasn’t mentally ready for the United States, but I think my body was moving faster than my mind when I found myself getting into a strange woman’s car at 1 a.m. in Newark. I stopped resisting every change; instead, I started quietly adapting, getting excited by the unknown. This time I wasn’t going to let “home” hold me back, so I decided home would be wherever I went.

In the end, I think Buddha was onto something. Eventually, everything asks to be let go. But if becoming who I am means risking heartbreak, I'd still choose to build myself through the people, places, and moments I love. Maybe attachment is the root of suffering. But without it, I would never have become the person worth carrying from one place to another.