When I came home I continued to live out of my suitcases, all my clothes shoved into luggage under the spare bed as I crashed with my brother for a few months before I left for school. My mom berated my brother for not making room for my things in the dresser. I didn't mind, I was used to living with my baggage.
I left some of my suitcases behind at home and took others to move out to school. In three moves from apartment to apartment as a college sophomore, I always managed to fit everything I owned into the small sedan that got me from A to B.
While B. and I were dating I honed my packing skills to a science, carrying all I would need for a three-day weekend adventure with my girlfriend in a small duffel bag I snagged for $3 at a thrift store.
I thought me and my baggage were good. We had a deal.
B. and I celebrated our birthdays last month. Hers is only two days before mine, so we usually combine the festivities in a low-key smattering of brief spending sprees and gift-giving over the course of a few days rather than one big cake-and-candles party.
When we went out to our birthday dinner, we did something we hadn't done in a long time: we had a real, heart to heart, deep conversation about the hard stuff in life - big decisions like careers and kids and our future together. One of those really intense, soul-bearing conversations that leaves you feeling raw inside. It had been a long time since we had brought up such deep personal stuff. It was brief, but still left us both sore and unsettled.
It gave me pause for a few reasons. It was a reminder of how much we leave under the rug, even in marriage. How much of ourselves can get shelved out of the other's view. We get so little time together, we rarely see more than the mild-mannered happy spouse-by-day face we put on in public.
Truth is, we all carry baggage with us.
I heard once that you don't have to be disagreeable to disagree. This was a charming adage given to me by a man who claimed that he had never fought with his wife.
That's crap.
Marriage, like most things in life, has some inevitabilities. Some fights resurface, not all dragons are vanquished after you make up, some disagreements lie dormant, waiting until you're both ready to tackle it again - and you aren't always ready.
But the scariest inevitabilities are the ones we pick up at baggage claim. Those insecurities, fears, anxieties, prejudices, tendencies, and tempers that are destined to clash by their very natures. We can't help it, we all have little passengers from our past latched onto us trying to gnaw at our futures.
Coming from a divorced family doesn't doom you to divorce. Growing up in financial fragility doesn't cripple your value. Bad breakups shouldn't dictate the dynamics of your present relationship. We aren't our past. We aren't our parents; their greatest gift to us isn't the legacy they leave us. It's the choice they give us. The chance to select what parts and portions of them to leave behind and what to take with us and make our own.
Baggage can be burdensome, but I think this goes the other way, too. When life decides to pile on the really heavy stuff, it helps to know that we can carry it. A charmed life of lightweight carry-ons is poor preparation for what fate can send our way. Maybe baggage isn't all bad.
No matter how clean we think our slate is going entering a new life with someone, there they are. Our issues await us at baggage claim. We can't leave it all behind, it's part of what makes us. I'm just glad to know I have someone who took me with all of my drama attached.
Pack light.
S
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