Baggage Limit

We’ve all found ourselves sitting on a suitcase at some point in our lives, desperate to get the zipper closed without busting the bag. Most people have attempted to squeeze toiletries into a quart-sized Ziploc or forced sweaters to take up as little space as possible in packing cubes.

You have to take baggage on a trip- it’s pretty much inevitable. In fact, it’s not uncommon to see an unashamed passenger redistributing the contents of their bags to meet the airline’s weight limit. 

At the airport, I’m constantly checking to make sure I have all my luggage with me. I’ve been known to push my way to the front of the baggage claim carousel to make sure I get to lay eyes on my bag first. The thought of leaving the airport without all my baggage is simply intolerable. 

And yet, every trip, I fall into the trap of believing that my physical luggage is the only baggage I will take with me. Maybe- just maybe- nothing else will follow me from home. None of my anxieties, my problems, the things I have to deal with. 

I forget that I can’t leave those things behind and hope that someone else picks them up at the Lost Baggage desk.

This fact used to paralyze me. I would arrive at my destination horrified to find my unwelcome baggage had come with me- all of it. It felt like some failure on my part that I could not vacation without the nagging presence of less-than-happy feelings. 

I’ve cried in hotel bathrooms on Christmas Eve while surrounded by some of the people I love the most. I’ve picked fights over appetizers in five-star restaurants. I’ve sat numbly and watched the most picturesque landscapes pass by in Europe, desperately hoping it would make me feel something. 

I hadn’t packed any of those feelings. In fact, I had intentionally left them at home. They didn’t belong at Christmas or fancy restaurants- and especially not Europe. 

The worst part was, once I found myself face-to-face with the baggage I had left at home, it became a competition with myself to get rid of it as fast as I could. I’d schedule my days with back-to-back distractions, talk to anyone about anything until my mind was too full of words to process my thoughts, and beat myself up if any negative emotion lingered. It never worked, and the feelings only got worse. 

I was on a trip last year when I found myself sitting in a theater lobby, obsessively going over the pros and cons of a decision I had to make the following week. It had been three days of pretending that the anxiety hadn’t snuck into my luggage and made the journey with me. It was exhausting. 

You ruined the whole trip. 

The little voice in my head is often hard to ignore. 

What a waste of a vacation.

I had pulled out my phone to scroll through my camera roll- anything to tune out the voice in my head that would not stop blaming me. 

What I saw was photo after photo of a girl having a great vacation with her dad. I saw good food, smiling faces, and fun experiences. I didn’t see a ruined trip. I saw happiness that coexisted with unhappiness.

For me, vacation is about living in the moment. Sometimes, that moment is all good. Sometimes, it’s all bad. And, realistically, it’s often a combination of the two. 

Once I started accepting that I was who I was regardless of where I was, I didn’t mind the extra baggage so much. There’s something kind of beautiful about having a good cry in Chicago or feeling anxious in Paris. 

Beats being sad or anxious at home, at least. 

The complex thing about being human is that there is no weight limit on our baggage. We get to feel all of it and bring it with us everywhere- regardless of whether or not we want it there. But if feeling sad on a train ride also means that I get to feel immeasurable joy on the hilltops of Florence, then I’ll bring an extra suitcase.