Baggage

Baggage: Everyone has it.

For some people, baggage is an extension of self. You can dress it up however you want, but it is still there. These are people with shiny pink outfits and shiny pink shoes. They carry shiny pink purses and shiny pink laptop bags and shiny pink carry-on bags. They also have two or three shiny pink suitcases. They make everything look okay because it matches. They trick you into believing it belongs. But if you look at these people long enough, you see that these people fill their bags (and their lives) with crap. They can't even move without bumping into something or someone. They are constantly taking everything in and piling on more matching, shiny pink bags until they get so weighted down by baggage that they can't even move. They have to have someone come pick up the mess they have made and help them along. Their baggage becomes their handicap.

Other people don't have so much baggage. It is there, but only just. Maybe they have a simple black carry-on. This bag isn't something that will become a permanant fixture, but just a few things they have thrown together over time to make things more bearable: things from past friendships and relationships that were really screwed up that they are still learning from. These people still let their baggage get in their way occasionally, but it doesn't completely hold them down.

Unfortunately I hold onto things. I emotionally over-pack my baggage because it is easier to put certain people in certain categories than to actually sit down and sort through the good and the bad. It's too much for me to think about how I could have been better, it is too simple to blame everyone else for my problems. The thing is, now that I see the problem and acknowledge it, I am trying to fix it. I'm trying to downsize so I don't get weighed down. I'm trying to practice forgiveness because in the past I have been so full of hate. I am trying to hold fewer grudges because what does that help, really?