As I sat considering the term ‘emotional baggage’ I wondered where that phrase came from. While I didn’t search extensively, the answers I found that made the most sense seemed to indicate that the cliché came from the depression era or possibly relating to individuals in the military.  Essentially a reference to the idea of a person carrying around the burdens of emotional pain, trauma, or some other past event.  I suppose it’s an accurate analogy for this very human condition in that all adults have a past, and the vast majority of us have emotional issues that cause us to suffer.  In my wife’s recent post, she spoke about the importance of ‘unpacking’ our baggage and dealing with it in an appropriate manner that will allow a person to move forward.  I love that she was able to recognize the need to ‘unpack’ what we both had been through. However, I can state from experience what can occur when we don’t unpack or continue dragging un-needed bags around for extended amounts of time. 

If we are claiming that people are carrying around heavy or full bags as adults, we are therefore under the assumption that we’re born with an empty bag. I’m fairly certain that I began packing all sorts of emotional matters at a very young age. Being raised in a dysfunctional home where my dad was an alcoholic ensured that I would start accumulating heavy items that would go directly in my bag. While I may have been spared any physical infliction of pain, my dad’s anger and harsh words hurt more and longer than any punch to the face ever would.  I don’t remember every incident when my dad got drunk and lashed out at me, there are a few that I recall with vivid detail.  One time while still in elementary school (I’m thinking perhaps when I was 9 or 10), I stayed home for school, perhaps I was sick, maybe I wasn’t. Whatever the reason, I apparently lied to my dad about it earlier in the day and later, after he had spent the evening drinking, he discovered the truth. When he discovered my lie, he proceeded with a tirade of calling me names including ‘gutless wonder’, ‘coward’ and the completely unrelated ‘pig’. On other occasions I merely was called the standard ‘worthless.’  

By the time I was in high school I was fully convinced that all of his descriptors of me were completely right. Along with the multiple incidents where he did his best to make me feel small and worthless, he seemed to want to make me feel unlovable too. Because I didn’t love myself, and my fathers love for me seemed non-existent, I came to believe the only solution was to find a girlfriend who would love me. I had fully convinced myself that if I could find a girl, she would not only shower me with affection, but magically fix every flaw I had. Ironically, I didn’t think I was physically attractive, nor had any qualities that would make me attractive to a girl. My flawed thinking was a double-edged sword (and those are really difficult to put in a bag). 

In the second half of my senior year in high school, for some reason unbeknownst to me, a girl in one of my classes took interest in me and we started going out. She would be my first girlfriend, the first person I had sex with, the mother of my first child, my first wife and the first, and thankfully only, person who tried to kill me on two separate occasions.  That is a lot to carry, let alone try to unpack.  

Without going into the details of all that went down in our 2 short tumultuous years together, that horrific marriage seemed to double the weight of the baggage my dad had already given me. By the time I was 20, I had numerous extremely heavy bags that I would continue dragging around well into adult life. I carried the weight of it everywhere I went. They were my constant companion in multiple relationships, my jobs, and every aspect of my personal life. Because I never even attempted to deal with the baggage, they just got in the way. Those heavy bags kept me from ever being the husband, father, son, friend or just person that I really wanted to be. I didn’t know how to love myself and subsequently I didn’t know how to love anyone else. The mental anguish from that baggage also manifested itself as frequent severe migraine headaches, depression and eventually addiction to pain pills. When I turned 50, I hit rock bottom. That birthday hit me harder than I thought it would. But it also became the catalyst to finally not just unpack those bags but burn all the heavy garbage inside them. Four months into my 50’s I met the love of my life. Because of her I found a way to deal with my past and for the first time in my life, find true joy.  I’ve learned it’s never too late to reinvent yourself by addressing the past, and truly learning from it.