Unloading Baggage

Today, I unloaded the books lining the shelves of a big bookcase in our home. I had purchased it when I started my public relations business back in 1995.

Now, ten years later, its heavy lines feel imprinted with expectations of the past. Big business. Heavy deadlines. The weight of the world.

The bookcase has stood in the room where, lately, I have been doing my writing. Every time I look at it, for some reason I'm not sure of, my energy drops.

There must be better things to look at. Aesthetic issues aside, however, my practical side bargains to keep it—it still works, it matches our décor, it holds a lot of books. Yet its usefulness to my spirit ran out long ago.

Just as I am ready to let go of this—a simple object, or so it seems, seemingly unrelated to the rest of my life—I am also ready to go of other things, deeper things, as real to my soul as this bookcase is to my physical self.

As I symbolically haul this heavy piece of furniture to the curb to load into the vehicle of someone for whom it is more than practical, I think how related and inextricable the clutter of our homes and the baggage of our lives can be.

Things like big bookcases, old habits, holding, fear and following what makes sense over what works well for our truest selves—all of these can be very easy to let go of. Once we begin, we realize we don’t really need to hold on so tight.

As we release and let go, we understand how delicious it can be to fly light. As I look at the big blank wall now before me, in spite of the piles of books cluttering the floor and the questions--where will I now put all this stuff?--I see the beauty of open expectations and the unknown looking back at me.

Sometimes all it takes is an act of courage, a leap of faith and what seems like an irrational decision to the outside world to be able to feel like, once more, we can truly see.