Losing Our Baggage

In a dream, I traveled somewhere new, somewhere exciting, and the where, the why, and the mystery of it all had my heart pounding with anticipation and fear.

I did not travel lightly.

The journey was bogged down, my arms burning from dragging heavy luggage, my body fatigued, and my mind twisted and worn from indecision and worry.

Without warning, I was lifted from the ground by a gentle breeze, and I floated, gliding with ease high above the clouds over a large body of crystal clear water. I watched below as an expansive city came into view, tall buildings glittering with jewel-tone colors. The beauty was astounding and took my breath away.  The city grew closer and closer until the wind dropped me gently on the shore of this new city.

Yet, although I had been deposited into paradise, with the excitement of the future before me, all I felt was panic as I realized my luggage had been left behind on the distant shore.

How would I get my luggage back? How would I ever live without it?

I walked the jeweled streets hunting for a path back to my old neighborhood. I considered swimming back. I lifted my head to the skies, wondering if the breeze that flew me in would assist once again. All of it futile.

Finally, I found a security guard and asked him if he knew any way at all I could retrieve my missing luggage.

He looked me squarely in the eye and asked, “Are you really sure you want to do that?”

 I woke up, never answering him.

I sat up, hugging my knees to my chest. Some dreams are just dreams. Some dreams are not.

Another word for luggage?

Baggage. I didn’t need a dream interpreter to spell this one out.

What baggage am I hanging on to that is keeping me out of a paradise-like future?

I have been in a decluttering mode. That would be the obvious place to look for baggage as I pause on each bit of clutter and the memories it holds. Stuff is not always just stuff when you can feel, remember, and touch your children’s childhood in your hands. And yet, my home is not a museum, and stuff is not invited to stay.

But is that all there is? A warning dream about clutter?

Too easy.

We all carry baggage. Not just physical baggage, but heavy emotional baggage too, that for some reason we are more comfortable carrying down the streets of our lives, living with the burning weight of its existence, than letting go and being carried off with the breeze into our future.

What if we just… let…go?

I’d let go… I think… if I knew what it was.

Maybe the answer is as simple as this:

Imagining ourselves on that distant paradise shore, and then asking ourselves… what is the thing that we would struggle not to go back to?

There it is. The Baggage. I found mine. Did you see yours?

Are you sure you want it back?

I don’t.