We are born and as we travel through life, we collect baggage. Some of it we leave littered along the highway as we travel along, some of it we carry with us through life. Sometimes we think we discarded it in Montana, only to see it tailing us in Washington. I have some baggage, and it is what makes this a difficult time for me. I don't usually talk about my baggage, but here goes.
First of all, I need to say that sometimes it is our reality of what events were, not what was really happening at the time. My reality has affected my relationships even though my logical mind has forgiven and accepts events. And also let me say I had the most magnificent childhood, surrounded by people who truly loved me and wanted the best for me. Reality was their wanting the best for me. My reality saw it and felt something differently. It's my reality that has become my baggage.
My Mom was barely 16 the day I was born at a time when young unwed teenage moms were uncommon. She was a wild woman, full of life. You can see it in her eyes and the flowing red locks. When I was three, I moved in with my grandparents (I vaguely remember standing on the cement steps waving goodbye to a mom, a mom I would rarely see over the next few years). Everyone claims it was my choice to stay behind as my mother moved to Florida. Perhaps it was my three year old choice, perhaps one of my smarter life choices. My grandma who couldn't go to the hospital the day I was born out of embarrassment, fell in love with me. Some say I was her favorite. All I know is that I felt her love in every ounce of my being. She was strong and tough, a woman before her time. She'd send me to school in pants in an age when girls were supposed to wear dresses. She tried to teach me to stand my ground when, as one of the few white girls at a Native American school, they would beat me daily. She gave me my strength. She helped shape my very essence.
I remember visiting my mom when I was about 13. She had slaved away on a bunny coconut cake for my birthday. I remember thinking how ironic that she didn't know how much I despised coconut but yet I know, in my teenage mind, that she had spent alot of time on that cake and it was made with love. It's funny what memories stay with us through the years. Become our baggage to toss out along the highway.
At 15, my grandparents thought it best I go and live with my mom again. I guess they thought I was falling in with the wrong crowd. Must have been because in my attempt to survive school, I had gotten myself a boyfriend with some mighty big sisters (oh yeah, beat on this girl now!!). Reality, what was best for me. My reality, being abandoned.
My mom at the time had an abusive husband. I would watch him beat her now and then and step in when I could. There's other stories there, but that's for another time. She finally left him. I moved out the day after I graduated from high school. Somehow moving in with my mom at 15 had provided me with a closeness to my sisters that continues to this day and a respect for my mom that she had done the best that she could. That she left me out of love, but I was not forgotten. And I see her love for me to this day.
In the 80's, I found my birth father. In prison for murder. I thought surely I came from better stuff. His story is a book in itself. When he committed suicide earlier this year, I found that part of my birth family and what a connection we had. My regret is not having the nerve to contact them earlier.
Throw in two kids of my own, a 13 year marriage to an alcoholic, raising my sister's children as my own and you have my life story. Oh yeah, and sex with countless unknown men. What story could be complete without them? Trying to find something, who knows what, in the arms of a stranger.
So as I struggle with my feelings for a man who I should have never fallen in love with, who is so opposite yet so much the same as myself, the struggle isn't just with him. It's about the baggage I thought I left behind, the baggage I never knew I packed, the baggage that reminds me that people who love you leave you, they hurt you. The baggage that has you thinking you need to be in control both in life and sex and that somehow giving up that control and letting your heart win opens yourself up to vulnerabilities.
I know I'm ok, I'm strong. I look at some peoples lives and wonder how they ever survived. I am so lucky. I had so many people to raise me and love me. Some would say I was a spoiled little rich brat growing up. And all I know is that the baggage comes along.
I write to heal. To heal myself. To be honest with what is and was. To be honest with my shortcomings. My mindless wanderings as I sort out loving, how scared I am to love, how much I so need to be held and loved.
