Baggage Claim. Michael J.D. Lowery

We treat opportunities like a bus route. We think that if we miss the 9:30 am moment of opportunity, we can just wait at the same stop for the 11:45 am. Moments of opportunity don't run like a bus schedule, and you can't hail them like you do a cab. It would be nice if we could schedule them like a limousine ride, or use them to get to our next destination like a shuttle service. But that's not life! Life is a journey that has moments along the way; many to be captured and stored; many to be caught and released. Part of the journey involves knowing which is which; which ones to seize and which ones to surrender. The root word to momentum is moment, and the root cause to gaining momentum is seizing the moment! If we don't know the difference, we will find ourselves clinging to moments past their expiration date; holding onto relationships, friendships, and memberships that were only meant for a season. There is a popular adage that states, "There's no use crying over spilled milk." I would like to rephrase that: "There's no use crying over SPOILED milk"! It has spoiled because it was kept past its expiration date. Please understand that many or even most of our past relationships were meant to contribute experiences that help to shape us, but not necessarily to be life-long relationships. Those are few and far between. The roles of most of our relationships, however great or small, are to essentially help in building the bridges we cross to get to the next place in our lives, which is essentially our own growth and development. If it weren't for those experiences, even the negative ones, we wouldn't be who we are. I'd like to think of them as connections to our destination.

      When you realize that, it makes it impossible to harbor hatred, bitterness, and un-forgiveness. Often, we magnify the offence, not the opportunity for growth! We let emotions skew our perceptions, obstructing our view of how much we could have grown out of those negative experiences. They should have yielded wisdom and maturity, not issues. How can I hate the person who hurt me or abused me, when that hurt or abuse empowered me? I wouldn't have known what was lying inside of me! I wouldn't have known what I was capable of handling. I wouldn't have known my value. It may sound absurd to most, but every negative experience has the potential to aid in our development. But even people who have made positive contributions in our lives are often only there for a season. Please read carefully what I have discovered: Only a small fraction of all the people we have met in our lives will remain in our lives for a lifetime. Once again, life is a journey that has moments along the way; many to be caught and released. So too is it with people. Once again, they are often connections to our destination.

      How many times have you been to a family reunion or a class reunion and greeted people you haven't seen in ages? Perhaps it was 10, 20, 30 years since you were in their company. Remember how emotional that reunion was, seeing and realizing how much that person had drastically changed? Some faces changed so dramatically that they were barely recognizable. Remember how you felt when they said their name and at that moment, you were able to associate their name with their face; their face with your history? It's usually then when, after seeing how much they've changed, you realize how much you've changed. You see, living with yourself allows you to acclimate to the changes that naturally occur over time. You are able to see the signs of aging as they occur. You are able to make adjustments and allowances; qualify and sometimes rectify years of abuse and neglect. It isn't as traumatic as seeing someone you haven't seen in many years, and "running into" a completely different-looking individual. Well, the changes you see over time are physical, visible signs of aging. What you don't see are ravishes of time and experiences that have taken their toll emotionally and psychologically. What aren't visible to the human eye are the loads of emotional baggage that have accumulated over long periods of time. What aren't taken into account are the psychological damages incurred due to failed marriages, relationships, businesses, and friendships. You see, underneath the surface, we have aged well beyond our calendar years because issues will age us faster than the years themselves! These are the emotional and psychological "Dog Years" that determine our true age, not the calendar years. Deep beneath the physical appearance are near-death experiences, times of disappointments, and times of defeat; losses as well as gains. No doubt, the stories you heard at those reunions were mostly exaggerated and embellished, leaning more towards success than failure. Most people abbreviate their recall of life's journeys, editing them to match yearbook predictions and senior-class dreams. You usually only learn of them through the whispers and gossip that occur at the bar. Reunions aren't for therapy sessions, confessionals, or counseling. They often involve lying, pretending, and overlooking the big elephant in the room.

      It isn't until the evening, back at the hotel room as you prepare to retire for the evening that you begin to stare face-to-face with your own mortality. It is then that you realize the obvious; we aren't getting younger, and that life is quietly and quickly passing us by. We have been on a journey for a long time and didn't even realize it. Along the way, we picked up excess cargo; luggage we somehow stowed in the overhead of our minds. Somewhere along the way we forgot to do the most important thing in life; that is, to live! It is then we realize that we settled and compromised for so long in order to make relationships work, that we lost our own identity in the process. Reunions have a way of being bitter-sweet, and they can leave a lasting, lingering depression long after the last piece of cake has been consumed. There are many who skip reunions for these very reasons, and that is certainly understandable. After all, who wants to celebrate getting older, fatter, and slower?

      Yet, there are important lessons, life lessons that can be learned from these events. One lesson I learned is that life is a journey, so pack light! Take with you only the essentials and leave the extras behind. Make many memories without packing too many memorabilia; experience the negative without collecting souvenirs.

      Chapter 2

      The Departure

      Anxiety over separation runs very high in pets and children. I am convinced it is at toxic levels in adults. When I travel, I am usually more concerned over what I may leave behind than what I am taking with me. There's nothing more frustrating than arriving at my destination only to discover that something important was left behind. That meant that I would have to scour a city I am completely unfamiliar with in order to replace that item. As a result, I would have to spend time and money, if I was lucky enough to locate the item I'd left, to purchase another. And if locating a substitute was unsuccessful, then I was stuck trying to "make do" without that necessity. After experiencing that anxiety for so long, I over-compensated by over-packing. My plan was clear; take more than I needed because "it is better to have and not need than to need and not have". As a result, I found that I was carrying excess baggage just because of anxiety. My fear of leaving something behind was why I'd taken more than I needed! Perhaps that is why people transport baggage of unresolved issues from relationship to relationship; from one place in their life to the next. It isn't necessarily on purpose. It isn't because people like the weight of excess psychological issues, or the energy they expend. There is this anxiety about departing from one place and arriving at another, ill- prepared. There is this innate need to bring the familiar into the unfamiliar; to bring the known into the unknown. Even if those emotions and cycles are negative, they are at least, familiar. At least in this way, there is always something to "fall back on". For this reason, many people find themselves in cycles that are never broken. I would take that a step further and coin them as "recycles". Recycles are emotionally deeper than cycles because they are often harder to recognize. In recycles, an experience is materially the same, though it is experientially different. It is the same at its root, although it branches into other individuals and relationships. For example, if someone is in a marriage that experiences repeated infidelity, neglect, or abuse occurring at different times in that relationship, that is called a cycle. However, if the same individual is in another marriage experiencing the same cases of infidelity, neglect, or abuse as their prior marital relationship, that's called a recycle: different face, same place; different house, same hurt; different relationship, same result. The irony is that we wind up reliving the patterns we were trying to end; repeating the cycles we wanted to change; reconnecting with the same types of individuals we were trying to leave. Often, we find ourselves being attracted to or attracting the same types of people and habits; the core reason is familiarity. Subconsciously we are driven to that which is familiar, though consciously we look for that which is new and different. But by the time we are able to recognize that we've just recycled the thing we dreaded most, we have already invested time and emotions. That's when the