On Baggage and Rain

My mind has been a bit of a cluster lately. Some of this is because of life circumstances but some of this is because…I’m me.

I am a worrier. A pessimist. I am prone to anxiety and rumination – with a healthy dash of self-loathing for good measure. You are correct in assuming this is a rather exhausting mental cocktail. But I also assume, with full confidence, that many of you can relate and have your own bespoke recipes.

The cherry on top? If something isn’t overtly wrong, I seem to have an uncanny ability to overanalyze situations so my brain never gets to take a well-deserved break.

*Why yes, these are all excellent topics for discussion with my therapist!

I started this post last week; originally it was a mini-rant about all sorts of things bothering me, many of them existential. The writing was cathartic and I didn’t feel the need to publish a laundry list of personal woes, but wanted to reflect on a few general ideas that came out of that self-reflection. Namely, thoughts surrounding emotional/experiential baggage.

Whenever I write a post pertaining to mental health I feel like such a fraud. (After all, I hang my hat on Happy Things Friday.) But I’m leaning on a sentiment I recently read in a book: the old adage of “those who can’t do teach,” would be accurate if updated to “those who want to learn themselves, teach others“. Hopefully this post doesn’t come across like I’m standing at a blackboard lecturing…more like I’m acknowledging I still have so much to learn about being an adult and navigating life.

Wanna learn and grow together?

In the three short years I’ve been writing online, I’ve had the privilege of getting to know a number of you on a much deeper level than I ever anticipated and I realize there are a lot of heavy burdens represented in this space. We keep on doing life – as we must! – and appreciate and enjoy so many wonderful things in our unique microcosms of time and space. But many (most?) of us have things that are weighing us down, the majority of which we’re not able to openly discuss; or, perhaps, they’re problems that cannot be solved and instead must be creatively managed and tolerated year after year.

This isn’t about forgetting to practice gratitude – this is about honouring the fact things happen that wound and change us. Whether your burdens are big or small, heavy or light, I’m sending virtual hugs as you manage your load.

Imagine, for a minute, we’re all walking around the Airport of Life. From the moment our feet hit the floor in the morning, we start navigating its corridors.

GATE ONE: Parenting, GATE TWO: Relationships, GATE THREE: Career, GATE FOUR: Life Management (with connections to Laundry, Meal Prep, Appointments, Bills…), GATE FIVE: Exercise and Physical Care, GATE SIX: Leisure Activities. GATE SEVEN: Insert additional/relevant categories from your own life.

The whole time we’re trotting around this maze of competing demands on our time and attention, we’re dragging baggage behind us. We cart bags into meetings and lunchrooms, into conversations with friends over coffee, into our bedrooms at night and our mirrored reflections in the morning. They sit beside us at our kid’s volleyball games and violin recitals and to story hour at the library. They come to doctor’s appointments and holiday gatherings.

Bump, bump, bump. Up the steps to our front door. Another day over. We might line our bags up neatly in a corner at night, but we always have to pick them up again in the morning.

Bump, bump, bump. Out the door and down the steps. Another day begins.

And, mostly, we do this without thinking or noticing. Baggage is part of life. The size and shape of the suitcase(s) vary, but having mental – and, often, physical – baggage is a shared, inevitable human experience.

I think one of the strange things for me has been recognizing that I have more baggage than I realized; things I didn’t think were piggybacking on my life have, in fact, been hitching a ride all along. Part of me wants to believe I can leave my baggage behind for the day; pretend the contents don’t belong to me. But it’s not a choice. Things happen – they hurt, they leave a mark, they go in our suitcase and we carry them.

Even though we’re strong, even though we build muscles, even though we get used to the weight, many of us get to a point where we can no longer ignore – or push through – the pain. Eventually we end up having to stop, kneel down on the ground beside our bags, and start unpacking things bit by bit.

This part can really suck. I’m in the unpacking stage right now. Some of the contents stink – they’ve festered and gone rancid. Some of the items leave me shaking my head, asking: How did this even get in here? I don’t remember packing this!

I start by rifling through, looking for baggage I can offload for good. That’s the exception. Mostly, I’m limited to giving items a good laundering – though chances are, even if I manage to make them a bit brighter, the stains won’t ever fully come out. I might find some bricks wedged in at the bottom; with the help of a sledgehammer [therapy! self-reflection! God’s grace!] I try to break them into smaller pieces, smoothing the rough edges, and transforming them into something less cumbersome and weighty.

But here’s a truth: I might be able to lighten my load, but it’s always going to be my load.

So we’ve all got baggage (weight and contents varying significantly) and we tend to it as best we can. We oil the wheels, check the zippers are in good repair, itemize the contents, repack things more efficiently.

And then it starts raining.

We were trying to wrangle our baggage over a rut in the sidewalk, but are suddenly getting drenched in a freak sunshower*? We can see the sun, but we feel the rain. And our hands are too full to open an umbrella.

*See also: drizzle, downpours, thunderstorms, hurricanes, etc – rain comes in many forms!

A few final thoughts:

• What about other people’s baggage? We might spot someone carrying a swanky Louis Vuitton handbag and assume their baggage is minimal. But that purse might be filled with boulders (or ticking time bombs). That giant roller being wheeled by the person in front of us? It might be stuffed to the brim with feathers. It’s easy to make judgements about what some else’s baggage might contain based on how they package things, but looks can be deceiving…
• Life keeps adding to the load. I tend to think of baggage as burdens from the past. But what about current baggage? The routines or realities that weigh us down in the here and now? The tense work relationship, the physical challenge, the unexpected financial reality, the aging parents, the ongoing loss and grief of infertility or broken marriages or estranged family members or unemployment.
• Professional unpackers are worth the investment. Therapy has been tremendously impactful for me over the last year. I’m still unpacking baggage past and present and that part is painful and tedious, but doing it with someone who is trained for this job is revelatory. Sadly, it can be cost-prohibitive and I also recognize that it can take effort to find a good fit. If you’re able, keeping trying until you find someone that clicks. It’s worth it.
• Itemizing helps. I took this exercise one step further and actually sat down and wrote out specific items in my mental suitcase. I started this list in a notebook, but found having categories helped me focus in on different types of baggage. Knowing what things I’m carting around makes the load feel less cumbersome. (If you’re so inclined, I’ve included printables below.)
• What about faith? As a Christian, my unpacking always circles back to spiritual reflection. I get to take this list – and my suitcase – and lay it at the feet of someone else. The realities of my experiences don’t change – some bad/hard/wrong/unfortunate things have happened in my life (and, almost certainly, in your life too) and I don’t think a Christian is called to put on a sunny smile and pretend like everything is okay, nor do I think all these mental burdens will ever be fully lifted this side of eternity. But I so often forget I don’t have to carry these burdens alone.

* 1 Peter 5:6-8 (LB) – Let him have all your worries and cares, for He is always thinking about you and watching everything that concerns you.

* Philippians 3:13 (LSB) – one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead…

* Matthew 11:29-30 (AMPC)- Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am gentle (meek) and humble (lowly) in heart, and you will find rest (relief and ease and refreshment and recreation and blessed quiet) for your souls. For My yoke is wholesome (useful, good—not harsh, hard, sharp, or pressing, but comfortable, gracious, and pleasant), and My burden is light and easy to be borne.

I’ve got nothing left at the moment and may have just been doused by a freak thunderstorm that looks a little something like this:

So how about I just repeat the opener?

Whether your burdens are big or small, heavy or light, I’m sending virtual hugs as you manage your load.

Header photo by Lukas on Unsplash