Left Luggage

20 Jul

I recall being eighteen years old and travelling to be a cook assistant at an American summer camp.

I was first sent to a camp based in Boston. I did not like the camp so contacted the camp organisers and they reassigned me to a different camp based in North Carolina. So I packed up my stuff and travelled for the longest journey in my life thus far from Boston to New York to collect my travel information, and then from New York to a camp based in North Carolina. The journey turned into a 36 hour round trip. This journey was not a simple one, as the coach stopped in Virginia for a fuel change, where we were told to get off the coach for a break. So I took my ghetto blaster I and my small back pack leaving my suitcase on the coach.

At this point I took the opportunity to call home when I hung up the phone, I turned and saw the coach leave with my luggage still on board. I was left with my small back pack and ghetto blaster with no lead stranded in Virginia. The coach station staff told me that although the coach had not left the coach station, it was illegal to get the driver to open the door. So I was left watching the coach leave with my luggage while I waited four hours for the next coach. I learnt a lot on that journey, travelling through some of the poorest areas in the Southern States of America, seeing their inner beauty and learnt a lot about the strength of my core resilience.

I finally got on a slow coach stopping at every stop that took 11/12 hours and eventually arrived with my small back pack and ghetto blaster in North Carolina. The camp manager and his wife looked at me very oddly thinking that I had brought so little luggage for 3 months at summer camp. A couple of months later towards the end of summer camp, my luggage arrived having had a nice break in Dallas.

If only life was so simple, in that our emotional luggage could get left behind or lost on our life journey.

The problem is that sometimes life can be cruel it can remind us of a memory or a challenging situation that brings back the difficult feelings associated with that situation, which we would have wanted to leave behind. I recall once one of my wiser supervisors saying to me that unless you are able to look over your shoulder at the past, how can you move forward in life? I know personally and professionally how difficult and oppressive it can be to carry life’s luggage.

Friends and family can be great people to share your emotional luggage with, although, sometimes getting guidance from those close to us can prove difficult, as they can add their emotional luggage to ours. This can feel overwhelming; and may be the time to get external professional support. We all have some form of emotional luggage that we carry. My suggestion is perhaps take a step back to see how much your emotional baggage is holding you back in life. It may be time to stop ignoring it and start finding a place to slowly open your emotional luggage and explore its contents. The question is: “Are you brave enough to start going on that journey?” The time to open that emotional luggage must be when we have the appropriate conditions and support systems around that help us to grow as individuals. Good luck with whatever you decide. Remember it is your decision and no one can make it for you.