Packing My Baggage and Tossing It Aside

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.