Political transitions, global crisis or personal struggles are some certain visible upheavals in human life. Yet an equally profound experience occurs in the quiet corners of living: the disappearance  of objects that once shaped our sense of self. The objects may be modest but they form a silent architecture of one’s identity. And when circumstances separate us from them, we confront a unique loss, a slow erosion of belonging.

Oftentimes, we gather things over the years that serve as markers of time and not just passive possessions. A bus ticket from the first solo trip. A small singing bowl bought from a religious place. A rosary once used for meditation. A postcard picked from a museum in a city once visited but remembered forever. A red scarf picked for celebrating a special occasion. Even mundane stationary items: a pen from an exam qualified long ago, a notebook carrying early work-life struggles. These items often carry more meaning than one can consciously admit. 

Artefacts trapped in inaccessible spaces, piggybank carrying loved currency from an elderly mentor discarded without our knowledge breaks something significant. It is unsettling awareness that fragments of one’s life have been removed from one’s hands. Objects are indeed replaceable but meaning cannot be repurchased.

Travel brings a peculiar kind of belongingness to life, letting us collect objects that carry landscapes within them. Fridge magnets collected from a random street, seashells from a coast once visited as a teenager. Such objects are not souvenirs but spatial memory holders. Losing them is not a loss of objects but losing the tactile evidence of places where one felt happy, free and curious.

The loss becomes even more complex and significant when it intersects with identity. A book purchased during a period of self-discovery, objects bought from the first paycheck. All these are reminders of a life built with intention and purpose. Vanishing of these items feels like an erasure of peace and progress they once symbolized.

Another major grief associated with belongings is tied to people who are no longer alive. A rare history book gifted by a mentor, a woollen cap knitted by a loving elderly lady, a handwritten letter by a friend who died in an accident. These objects blur the line between physical presence and emotional continuity. Loss of such objects carries a weight that cannot be articulated in any language. It is a funeral ceremony with no invitees.

Yet, all forms of loss nudge towards a philosophical understanding of why do these objects matter so deeply? Perhaps because they ground our being. They provide stability in a constantly changing world, asking us to shed and adapt. 

German-American poet & novelist Charles Bukowski writes about loss in his poem Lost and I quote, 

“those who escape hell, however,
never talk about it
& nothing much bothers them after that.
I mean, things like missing a meal,
going to jail, wrecking your car,
or even the idea of death itself.

when you ask them,
“how are things?”
they’ll always answer, “fine, just fine…”

once you’ve been to hell and back,
that’s enough
it’s the greatest satisfaction known to man.”

I believe one does not need to be a collector or traveler to understand this impulse. Ordinary individuals also preserve relics, but once they disappear, one confronts the fragility of memory. But loss also reveals unexpected resilience, the survival ability without physical anchors. The book may be lost but the mentor’s influence persists, the cap may be gone but the warmth stays.

In losing objects, one is often reminded that meaning not only resides in matter but also in mind’s astonishing ability to store stuff that world cannot seize. Memory itself is a kind of ownership that no one can confiscate.

In a world reinventing minimalism and detachment, one is definitely tempted to dismiss attachment to objects yet truth is more nuanced. These belongings actually form the invisible scaffolding of an attentively lived life. Their loss cannot be trivial. Objects might disappear but their meanings do not. We continue to keep them in the layered geography of remembrance, not drawers or boxes.