I spend a lot of time thinking about the past. Sometimes with nostalgia for good times gone and sometimes with bitterness for the hard times. I think about which experiences, good and bad, had the greatest impact on who I am today, at this very moment. I also wonder about who I really am because I have so many different faces for different people. We all do. We have the face we show our parents, the one we show our kids, the one we show our closest, dearest friends, the one we show our boss, the one we show to people we want to impress, the one we show to people we don't give a fuck about. So many faces. But which one is the true face, the core of who you are, your true self? Do you show that face to anyone? Do you even let yourself see it? I wonder about this a lot. I wonder if my perception of myself is on par with what other people think of me. Probably not.
I updated my status on Facebook with this almost a month ago and it's still bothering me:
Why is everyone so dark and twisty inside? We all think we're so special because we have these secrets but the reality is...everyone has baggage. Everyone is fucked up. What matters though, is whether you worth more than the baggage you carry. Make yourself worth it.
Further to my dark and twisty comment: The baggage I carry is only part of me...the sum of me is so much more. You need to trust that the sum of you is astronomical compared to the baggage. That bag...it only makes you stronger because you have to carry that fucker everywhere.
So just to expand on that a little bit. I see things all the time about "Let your baggage go, it's too heavy to carry everywhere, you'll never get anywhere if you're always carrying that baggage." I don't agree with that sentiment at all. I mean, yeah, you need to try to let go of bitterness and resentment because you are only poisoning yourself if you desperately cling to them. The person you feel that hate for is blissfully unaware that you are torturing yourself over them. However, I think it's unrealistic to expect that you will ever be free of all the baggage you carry because the human mind just isn't built that way. We hold onto that stuff so we can protect ourselves for similar situations in the future. If we forget about them, we just make the same mistakes and go through it all over again. Those who forget the past are bound to repeat it and all that. So we need to learn how to carry the baggage but not let it take over our lives. To manage that, there is one stipulation; don't pack it too heavy, because there are weight restrictions. The plane won't fly if it's too heavy and neither will you. You have to learn balance if you want to fly. You have to learn what items to take out of your bag and which ones to leave in there for later.
Stop struggling to be free of the thoughts and ideas that make you who you are, especially if you kind of like yourself. If you hate yourself, you might need to work on that. That might be a whole different blog post. But accepting that you have baggage is the key to everything. Deny it and you risk suffocating under its weight because that sneaky fucker can get overwhelming pretty fast.
I started writing this blog to help organize my thoughts, to express myself in more healthy ways, but my secondary purpose was to show you that other people have the same problems as you do. That you are not alone. We all think we're floating through this life on our own, especially during our deepest troubles. That's when we feel the most desperate, but the fact remains, there are people out there going through similar experiences. Sometimes all you have to do is reach out to them and ask them about it. It's a pity that those are the hardest times to actually express yourself.
I leave you with this sentiment, which is still one of my faves:
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