Baggage claim

Climbing over the teetering mound of lost luggage, I search for one particular suitcase. Worn from years of lugging it around the country, bumping along dead-end streets and seemingly endless highways.

From the apex of cases, a landslide left a loose scree of smaller bags and satchels, spilling their contents along the way. From my precarious vantage point, I scan the rubble strewn landscape looking for my bag.

I’ve been carrying it around half my life. I know the weight of it intimately, every article it contains, and the story behind each one. The only thing I can’t sort out is why I have kept all this chaos. Hoarding bad memories, toxic relationships, poor judgement, risky decisions, all crammed into a too small valise.

The heavy burden of my emotional baggage slows me down, holds me back from reaching my goals. It preoccupied my thoughts, while I agonized over how I can pack more shit into the case.

There it is, over by baggage claim. I could just leave it there, abandon it to the elements, never to think of it and all it holds ever again. What if I open it, and discover that it’s truly empty? That the burden I’ve carried all these years was within me. That all along, I could have unpacked my contentious baggage, leaving behind everything that held me back?

What if…