I do agree that accumulating existential baggage is part of living. After reading your post and the comments I am changing my mind about “baggage”. I suppose I’ve always thought of baggage as being a negative, like you need to “get rid” of all your baggage but that would be equivalent to getting rid of yourself, right?

Interesting the question about appropriate ways to pack and unpack. I am Little Miss Organized with my stuff and how it’s packed and unpacked. I am seeing that I am Little Miss Organized too when it comes to revealing my thoughts and emotions. I want to control what people see and what they know about me. One thing at a time, well planned, well thought out. I am working on this, this letting go of control. Who knew my packing style said so much about my “packing style”?

I am in the infant stages of blogging and I can say that I set some rules for myself before starting. The blog is a way for me to unpack and it is a way for me to reveal myself. Writing is very powerful. I look back on just two months of blogging and I can see me and I have seen some surprises too. I don’t intend to be fake on my blog. I do intend to be careful about my baggage because ultimately my blog is not about me and at times I’ll need to stay out of the way of the better story.

Uh, hope that didn’t sound too cryptic.

Thanks for another post that made me think.

(Hi Gale)

While I am more seasoned in the world of private family blogs (my own blog is private and is almost 100% geared for out-of-town family who don’t get to see my son often), I’m newer to the world of public and topical blogs. But I’m finding that there are lots of fascinating people out there having truly interesting discussions online. And I’m really enjoying the shot of adrenaline they provide to my thought process.

Now – for Gale – I don’t think blogging is necessarily unpacking or unloading. There are journal-like blogs that seem more like a private place of revelation and discovery; the degree of detail and intimacy (without appropriate context) keeps me away from some of those. But if they serve as a means for someone to explore difficult experiences, or process new ways of thinking, then why not?

The blogs I love to read are like this one – they range in format and orientation, but ultimately, they reveal bits and pieces of the person writing, while frequently having a universally appealing message, or better yet – provocative questions. They read more like “columns” with greater intimacy and fewer rules and restrictions.

Do they disclose a great deal? Absolutely. Without those disclosures the author has little authenticity. And like characters in a story, we as readers wouldn’t connect to their lives emotionally. We wouldn’t care to keep reading. We wouldn’t be happy when they’re happy, and want to extend a hand when they need one. It is a special sort of storytelling and communication – and community.

The blogs I read are never “reckless, presumptuous, ill-advised,” etc. Most of them are touching, heart-breaking, wickedly funny, poignant, and damn good writing knowing that someone is pumping something out in pretty quick fashion and then getting on with the day – working, parenting, partnering, chauffeuring, commenting, reading, studying, and so on.

The down side – this is the world wide web. If you’re seeking employment (as I am), you don’t use your name. If you wish greater latitude in what you say (living in a conservative place, and also seeking employment in that place), you don’t use your name. If you have kids who might read you, you don’t use your name. If you wish to keep some sort of privacy – again – due to your circumstances (professional or personal), you don’t use your name. And I don’t speak about certain subjects, other than a general allusion. Some subjects, I will never speak of.

But I will appreciate reading of them in others’ writing. I will learn from what I read. I will be a “bigger” Big Little Wolf in the process.

Unpacking our baggage – that’s what Aidan asked about. There’s always an element of that, but is it a bad thing? I don’t think so. It’s all in the choice of words, isn’t it. “Unpacking our baggage” could just as easily be referred to as “telling our stories.” And this is what community and family have always been about. It may be virtual community, and virtual family, but it is no less real, and no less dear for some of us.

“What is the appropriate rate at which to unpack your things?” This makes me think about the things I’ve unpacked on this blog since I started following it over the summer: Affectionate moments with my son, eating disorders, transparency with my parents, my prayer life, my engagement story, my level of satisfaction with my career, and division of labor with my husband. I rattle it off like that and it sounds like a lot. But as I’ve commented, little by little, it never seemed “reckless, presumptuous, alienating, or ill-advised.”

I wonder how my fellow regular commenters respond to this (Hello Christina, Mama, BLW, D, and Random Esquire!). Except for D, you all have public blogs also, so maybe it’s not so surreal for you all. But now my head is spinning with curiosity (and my own non-Ivy-League insecurities) about my levels of disclosure.

If we look at life as a journey, isn’t it only natural that we would have baggage of some sort, and for a long journey with many unknowns, even more to carry around?

Baggage = knowledge, experience, wisdom.
Baggage = pain, yes, but that is inevitable.
Baggage = resentment and anger, also inevitable.

It is up to each of us as we accumulate our knowledge, pain, and anger and transform those experiences, finding a personal alchemy that mixes them with joy, discovery, accomplishment – and teaches us to tread lightly where we must, sluggishly where we are not capable of doing otherwise, but carefully, when we are with others.

For me, words are my place of lost and found. “Baggage” serves to uphold my humanity even in the darkest moments, because that baggage is filled with color and texture, history and dreams. They all remain accessible; words free them. Transform them. Make room for more.

We are the baggage, the parcel, the entirety of our stories and responses to them.