absense of baggage

Absence of Baggage
They say life is too short of a journey to take so much worrying about your baggage, but have anyone of you ever just gotten on a bus train or automobile without anything. Or have any of you ever gotten half way where you’re going and realized that you’d left your pocket book or wallet? Felt kinda naked huh? There is something secure about knowing that you have ‘something’ that contains all your essentials—your baggage.
Now I agree that too many bags, or to heavy of a satchel can be cumbersome, for example… Moms you can relate remember when you were a new mother just trying to get to the store with your baby in tow… OMG… it was like, first HOW long did it take you get ready and then, how long did it take you to get out of the car and then, man, how much goobledygook did you have to throw over your should and tuck in the back of a stroller and bend over to fasten and whew, my gosh, by the time you made it to the door, you needed help just to get inside and good for you even you even remember what you came for.
But you were happy because you felt ready—for anything—flash flood, fire… any and everything. Truthfully, once I had so much stuff in and around the stroller that I had to carry my baby on my hip.
I hate to say it but I see that still tendency in so many people—that, I gotta be ready. I see it in myself too. It’s all a form of control.
I’m not gonna lie, control is good. I like it—to a degree. But it can be a killer. Control can hurt you. This is because it causes you to miss out on so much while you get overly prepared for the ‘what if’ of a situation. I mean, in some cases you are getting ready for stuff that frankly… just won’t happen.
Yes, yes, we all know that adage, wash your car and it will rain. So during a drought everyone is out there washing their cars, but guess what? Washing our car did not make it rain… really. Nebulous clouds filled with wet stuff… that’s what caused the rain. Now, I know that scientist can make it rain—no joke. So if you really want to make it rain, don’t wash your car… become a scientist. What I’m saying is, if you really want to be prepared, go about it sensibly—really make something happen! Don’t just be out there washing your car! What can a clean car really do for you … but look good.
In life we carry around security blankets but as we have become less and less secure our blankets have become large bags—heavy and burdensome. Seriously are we all really going on that scary of a trip to where we need to be that prepared?
When I was living in Portland, the weather changed every minute, when I first moved there, I never went out without a jacket, a rain hat, gloves and change of socks and… and… and well you get the picture. But the time I left I was like… foot, if it rains it rains and if it pours I’ll get wet… whatever. I mean, I had even cut all my hair off so as to worry less about my hairdo. Who cared anyway! Everybody else was too worried about getting wet to notice how soaked I was.
Such is with life. Put the bags down just for a minute. Take the trip. Very seldom you’ll find that there is no snack bar or resources to make the trip at least okay. I’m not saying not to prepare for life—that would be wrong of me. But I’m saying, stop spending your life preparing for your life. Step out on self-trust, go about life with absence of fear, absence of hate and jealousy, absent of post traumatic whiplash… go out there with absence of baggage and see how you do.

© Michelle McGriff - 2009