Sunday Scribblings - Baggage

We all come with baggage, wether young or old. Some baggage we have been given, others we choose and some people have more than others. Baggage can be old and tattered from dragging it out too often. Some still look good from being kept up in the rafters, reminders of journeys gone by. It remains with us until we leave this world, where it has already been claimed.

The baggage of my youth was passed down to me by a "checked out" father and an abusive mother. As I grew into a young woman with low self-esteem, I stared to choose my baggage. I left home to the arms of a drug addicted, verbally abusive man. I made a choice to stay and have two children. I then choose to leave, putting my children through a bad divorce, passing on some of the pieces of baggage I had chosen.

I spent many years trying to tape up the tattered baggage, keeping it out of sight as if I had none at all. Life has an interesting way of finding new journeys for me to travel, needing one more piece to add to the mix. Funny how as the pieces grow larger, they fit perfectly inside one another, as if they were a set always meant to be. I looked at my baggage now and again, as they sat gathering cobwebs. I liked whom I had become, baggage and all, thinking my journey’s had come to an end.

I learned our journey is never done, because just as I had accepted my fate, I was sent an angel. When I met Dave, I told myself not to love him. My baggage at 42 years old would never fit into his already full closet. This is selfish behavior . . . stop it! I never was a good listener and fell in love. Marriage was out of the question, but he seemed so sure. I had him get my baggage down from the rafters, opening each piece before him. I left no pockets unchecked, no zippers unzipped. He still wanted me, baggage and all.

Dave and I have rafters full of baggage and uncertainty of the future. We also have grown and are stronger because of it. We are proud of our hodge podge collection of baggage, because without it we would not be here together. As we take each others hand, awaiting our next journey. The pieces still come out, going around the carousel waiting to be claimed.


Check out other scribblings on baggage here