Baggage on the Carousel

Smack against my skin; thud of the car my father was driving; terrified screams of rape; “I don’t love you I am leaving;” and “we are sorry you have a tumor in your brain.” are all things that have happened in my short thirty-four year old life. The sales clerk at the makeup counter; dental assistant; and other acquaintances cringe with disgust at the baggage life has thrown me as we chat. No, I don’t wander with my baggage dragging behind me for all to see. As a matter of fact I became a good actor hiding my personal belongings for a while until I figured out I could use mine to help other carry their own. Their faces draw blank and somber as they utter “Really, how do you do it?” and still have this bright light surrounding you and smile with laughter ringing from ear-to-ear.

I open my mouth and spill the rest of my journey – another brain tumor, liver masses and another on my right lung with no doctors to treat me since I am considered a rare case. I don’t beg more sympathy but to enforce the depth of my reality, my life. And to nudge them toward the idea that life will always throw dirty, torn bags our way but we can survive. It has to be one of the hardest lessons in life to learn.

You may think I have a “saint complex” to have overcome all of this and brag about it. It’s not bragging but sharing a lesson learned so others may figure it out before they lay near a scalpel that could slip and take their life. It is not my job to play God. There are others like me out there and you can often find them standing by my side either virtually or physically. On websites for patients and caregivers offering support to addicts, people with cancer, sexual predators, drama queens; basically any burden you can think of there are people like me. They helped me realize I have some magic of my own by learning to leave the baggage on the carousel.

As matter of fact, I hate the attention or lack of it because I have been labeled chronically ill, rare disease carrier, and she’s sick. Labels suck! What I do love is the power to show people you can take a moment to laugh, to shop, to enjoy a dinner with family and friends and to fill your bags with things other than pain and sorrow for what you missed or may never have again. You are allowed to feel, yell, scream and punch the wall if it helps. Eventually you need to decide what bag is worth your emotion. Our emotions help us plan the journey we live.

Leaving baggage behind is often the hardest thing in life. Some of it will be the blanket you carried sine you were a small child and some of it will be the people that gave you the bag to carry simply because they could not do it themselves. You sit and wonder why you have to do this and how come they are just leaving you behind like that ratty old gym bag that smells bad. Is it me? Often I would cry and bemoan the need to make a decision when I was the one fighting for my life – not them.

Wait, I have a role in this decision of what bags I want too. The baggage that is best for you and your journey. Sadly it took meeting death to make me realize all of this. Now I carry myself and those who want to help carry me without judgment and filled only with love. Those people allow me to grieve and to love? I left my father with a letter and friends who never called back so I stopped dialing. There were doctors’ who would stop fighting to heal me – more than 60 in all. I had to be the one to severe the connection so I could be healthy and be me.

My carousel keeps passing by with old bags that will never be looked at again and new ones that I will pick up and feel their pain, grief or fill them with happiness. All of this “drama” has lead me to finding myself and finally being happy with the person I see reflected back at me in the mirror.

The baggage carousel has gone around and will keep spinning as long as there are life travelers who have baggage to carry or to leave behind. And now you know the secret – you can choose your baggage.