How to Unpack Your Suitcase

 

How to Unpack Your Suitcase

I have had many traveling adventures in my life despite my fear of airplanes and trains. Most of my adventures have taken the shape of long rides in the car or the obligatory cruise to the Caribbean. I have consistently traveled with an obscene amount of luggage that the average person could live out of for six to seven months. I have been afflicted with this pitfall of never having enough and never being satiated for as long as I can remember. The amount of time, however, that it takes me to pack this said suitcase compares not to the number of years that it has taken me to unpack that rectangle of possessions, memories, souvenirs, and adventure. The snag, if you will, started when I was only eighteen. I thought that I knew exactly what I needed out of life, and more importantly, what I wanted. I jumped into a relationship with a magnificent young Italian man straight off the high school graduation floor. We rented our first apartment together, got ourselves a couple of low wage jobs, and settled into the bliss that only young love can provide. The problem was not my newfound love. The barrier was that I could not seem to unpack my suitcase. The suitcase, unlike the tattered boxes that we scraped together to move with, held my daily possessions. Things that I used every day of my life. This phase of my life lasted a little short of a year. This wonderful person, who I spent a sublime part of my young adulthood with, moved north and I moved into another apartment with my suitcase in tow. I call this the “awakening period”. The era when I learned how to take care of myself and learned independence. I was never one for failure and I would not be falling victim to it now despite the number of times that my phone was shut off by the phone company. Those next few years would turn out to be a blurry memory for me. They were full of young ambition and the adrenaline rushes that you feel as a twenty-year-old. I did not unpack my suitcase during those years. I never got around to it. I sat it in a corner and pulled from it what I needed when I needed it. About a year later, I met a man who would give me the biggest contribution to my life. My children. Those seven years were spent raising babies and all the beautiful mess that comes with it. Those are what I call “the busy years”. Time stood still for no one and there, in the corner, sat my suitcase. The suitcase sat alone and neglected for a long time. The only time that I gave it any attention was when I needed to pull out a memory or a lesson. Something that would remind me of the girl that I once was. The independent, strong, stubborn young woman that knew exactly what she needed, and most importantly, what she wanted. I refer to the past ten years as my “destination years”. I was once again on my own with my children in tow, but I was on a destination that I was unaware of at the time. I was traveling a path that would lead me to my soul mate. It wasn’t until a few short years ago, that I finally started the process of unpacking. I pulled out the memories and hung them up as to never forget them. Each one is a part of who I am and each person in them played a role in the person that I would become. The lessons were harder to handle. They had to be laid out gently as to not destroy the process that it took to learn them. They were heavy and I suddenly realized why I was able to wheel that tattered brute of a suitcase around but always failed to lift it. It took me forty-two long years to realize that I am not ashamed of what my suitcase holds. Too much time was wasted on desiring others’ approval. An extravagant amount of time was spent keeping secrets locked up in the suitcase so that my life would not appear unkempt. I only just recently decided to stop seeking affirmation of my life’s choices from other sources. Do not be ashamed of how others might perceive you because of what you carry. Do not unpack your suitcase until you can embrace what lies within. The lessons in that suitcase contain every molecule of your being. The most important step in unpacking a suitcase is to not unpack it until you can admire and respect every single element that it accommodates. With the unpacking, comes what we can truly call self- progress and the void of needless affirmations from others.

Kristen Hamilton