I was thinking about baggage yesterday…not the baggage that contains all the necessary shoes that I travel with, but the emotional/relational baggage that folks refer to negatively when they describe undesirable dating partners (e.g., "He’s got baggage."). Well, I think where baggage is concerned – be it shoes or the emotional/relational type – I am carrying my fair share. 

I have been thinking about this as I realized recently that it is hard to move through life without accumulating some baggage (and this applies to shoes and emotional/relational – I mean seriously…how do you turn away from cute shoes – especially if they are on sale – it is not even rational).  Indeed, I have come to realize that there is something telling about the amount and types of baggage a person carries with them; because, what is baggage really but the experiences of living the perfectly imperfect life?  If you were not living the perfectly imperfect life and hence had no baggage then I might suggest you were not really living life to its fullest.  Wow…that was profound…I need to rest for a second and absorb that.

So here it is – my brush with profound thought – baggage when defined as I have defined it above is a positive thing.  It means you have experienced some things and at times taken things away from those experiences (be they positive or negative takeaways) and those experiences and takeaways have formed and reformed you into the person you are today.  At it’s best baggage is synonymous with growth and coming to know and understand yourself better.  I don’t think that is a bad thing.

Having de-stigmatized emotional/relational baggage I think I should at least take a stab at the other type of baggage that I am known to be well-versed in – shoe baggage.  Here’s the thing – if shoes are viewed as an accessorizing item (which they traditionally have been by women), then more shoes does not denote some kind of shoe hoarding disorder or an inability to make a decision (hence bring them all), more shoes merely represent a savvy accessorizor that has a spectrum of colors in her wardrobe.

My work here is done.

Day two hundred and ninety-three of the new forty – obla di obla da

CC