Losing my Luggage!

I did a major assessment of my baggage about 3 months ago.

We all have some and I am not talking about the matchy matchy luggage set in two swank rollaways, with the pull out handle(that never seems to be long enough), one over the shoulder carry all and one mini “what didn’t fit in the other three” type. Well then again, mine was sort of matchy matchy with all the bells and whistles.

I am talking true blue baggage. Quirks, behaviors, must haves, can’t stands, disorders. I call them the self totes. GOT to carry them. GOT to have them. To breath, to live, they are ME so back off! Yeah, they are easy to hide behind too if ya stack em just right.

It often used to puzzle me how I could only carry 4 plastic bags of groceries yet could SURELY handle all my baggage and then some on a daily basis. Jaunting to and fro ALL pieces of baggage fully intact. Double zipped and locked for sure travel anywhere, any time, all day, every day.

My bags were always ready to accompany me anywhere. Many times they would even dictate where I went and where I didn’t go. Who I traveled with and who I didn’t. As though they were filled with items that would allow me to travel ONLY certain places with ONLY certain people. Typically people of similar “baggage” persuasion.

Damn those bags were a pain in the ass! I would go to jet off to the pub to meet my special people, or simply go visiting with family and I would have to check them, secure them, load them in the car, take inventory of them. A tiring process for anyone! SO many times I would skip the event JUST because I didn’t want to deal with assessing my baggage. Yeah, I thought it was pretty, all matchy matchy and certainly NOT worth leaving behind but it was heavy as hell. Draining. Tedious.

Maybe I will just stay home and stack it neatly somewhere where I can keep an eye on it, handles neatly tucked away, lack luster double zippers and rarely touched mini locks that could easily be bitten open by a curious 2 year old.

Soooo many times I stayed in my safe place rather than haul my baggage.

How much did I miss out on?

NEED EM?

One day I was hauling my baggage to my car and a person I knew, not yet on my “friends” list but well enough to call a trustable acquaintance pulled up next to me in the rainy evening drizzle and asked if I needed a ride to my car. There had been a QUITE a festive soiree that evening and I was forced to park far away. I had a moment of panic. If I jump in, out of this weather, I won’t be able to take my baggage. Standing there with snaps of cold rain biting my face I jumped in. I left my matchy matchy baggage stack on the curb right down to the one mini “what didn’t fit in the other three” one. They would be there for me when I came to pick it up, after all it was MY baggage and had MY name encased in the nice plastic business card holder danglies on each individual piece. Yes, it would be there.

Still with some panic, never prior being without my baggage, I jumped in!

The moment the door slammed and I felt the heat trailing through the vents and no more biting rain on my face I didn’t even think about it. My baggage.

He asks, “Where is your car?”.

“Around the corner.” I reply.

He had already jumped out and opened my door while I scampered in with only my chapstick and non baggage matching clutch purse that held little other than smokes, celly and powder.(a needy combination for any night out)

As we travel the long way around the block to where my baggage waiting car was resting, and me a newly baggagless girl, all warm and drying off nicely sitting there, co pilot……I ask.

“Do you want to go have a drink by the Lake?”

Now this is a daring move for me and would not typically be so bold. Maybe it was because I wasn’t being smashed in my seat by my 4 piece baggage set, or maybe it was because I sensed he left his on the curb as well to make room for me in his truck.(yes I said truck - chicks dig trucks)

We silently ride in the chilly drizzly weather and pick up a bevvie and head lake bound. I believe our initial silence was us both realizing we were doing something out of the ordinary, baggage free and it opened us up to whirlwind of conversation. We didn’t stay long lakeside, sipping and chatting. We chatted about important stuff, not so important stuff and had some good belly laughs in-between. Cracking the windows to listen to the waves and shutting them again as not to get pelted by the slanted stinging stuff.

After some time, he drove me back to my car and I thanked him for a very unexpected evening of yappiness. He waited until I had my engine thundering and wipers going, lights on, and tooling away before he then went his way.

What a lovely unforeseen eventuality I thought to myself.

Then, I SLAMMED my breaks!

“MY BAGS!”

“Oh my God, I left my bags on the curb! In the rain!”

After another moment of panic and our conversation trickling in and out of my head, the tiredness of the evening presenting itself, the relaxedness of the moment...I calmly thought to myself, “I will get them tomorrow”.

LEAVE EM!

I never did go back and pick them up. Someone else can haul them around for all I care. I don’t need or even want them anymore. I can’t even remember what’s in them! Why did I ever even lock em with those pathetic “two year old can bite through the locks” that came with them?

I carried these suckers around with me for what had seemed like a lifetime and in one flicker of a moment, went cold turkey and dropped em on a curb.(maybe it was his eyes)

(now for any of you cold turkey baggage droppers - BE CAREFUL - the effects can be overwhelming. Abrupt. Be prepared for an exhilarating feeling of lightness. It is instant reborn sort of event. Sobering.)

I have not even glanced in the direction where I left my bags since that night. I am certain someone picked them up and are hauling them around to this day but hope they decide to leave them on a curb for another’s lesson. They are just too heavy and cumbersome to be a part of anyone’s daily life and certainly don’t need to be part of any decisions. They are just bags.

I since remain bag free. And my night of shining armor, clad in a baggagless truck with a kick ass thumpin stereo remains not only part of my life, but has become an amazing never want to be without part of my life.

I wonder if my “what didn’t fit in the other three” mini matchy bag is still somewhere to found...Naw I won’t look.

BAG FREE!

I will just snuggle in, baggage free and let him wrap his arms around me. We are fairly matchy matchy together and don‘t seem to need the “what didn‘t fit in the other three“ piece.

We are light - almost weightless. I would carry this feeling around for an eternity and not me encumbered.

Check your baggage.

And then...

“Check” your baggage.

You don’t need it. Trust me.