Heavy Load is Great

I hate carrying things. Its one of those life things I loathe. Just like many people don’t like cleaning or washing dishes or doing laundry,  I hate carrying things from my car to the house. I feel like I’m forever destined to have my hands full of things to carry inside and I want to scream every time. If it’s not my purse,  it’s trash, or grocery bags though my son now takes  care of that. Throughout the years I have leveled up from my backpack,  to suitcases,  to diaper bags and baby carriers to lipstick bags (always lipstick bags)and laptop bags. When I become a billionaire, I’m hiring a full time “thing” carrier and paying them well because that job sucks.

I sat in my car today and pouted at the purse, the Amazon box, and the trash bag I had to carry inside the house. I started thinking about the things unseen I’ve also carried but never stopped to think about even though they didn’t belong to me. I’d picked up these ideas thinking they were explanations for why things happened to me.

 From an early age we carry things that were never ours to carry. The feelings of worthlessness for being the daughter of a father who never showed up for me. Surely there was something wrong with me because nobody just forgets their kids, especially the one that looks like him. The body image issues that have plagued me me obstinately throughout the years. You’re not thin like your cousins, your hair is not straight like theirs, you don’t even look Mexican. That equation always summed up to, you’re ugly. The shame of being at fault for being attacked by the neighbor who seemed friendly enough to smoke a blunt with. Why were you there and why did you trust a stranger? Your fault. The heartbreaks I gave myself by pursuing relationships with men that didn’t know themselves much less what love was. I carried those heartbreaks as rejections of my person. Of being unlovable because internalized shame and disappointment are familiar friends that you don’t have to fight for, they’re the easiest companions to find when painful things happen. They’re a crying session away.

How do we stop carrying things that are not ours? 

By taking a very realistic look at those who were responsible for teaching us our love and self worth and acknowledging that they were just people with adult titles that weren’t magic wands  once they became adults. My father was just a man who had his own childhood where love was an unnecessary component to his survival. The adults in my life who criticized my looks growing up; reflections of being raised in dichotomous cultures taught to hate themselves. The colonizer and the colonized in one. Like asking Stevie Wonder to do your tattoo. The boys who broke my heart; just boys. My only point of reference was my father, an intelligent a-hole. It’s who I thought was my type until I realized love never springs from empty wells. Only a mature grown up man will ever understand the responsibility and blessing it is to love a woman with a big heart who was once a girl with a broken one. None of  those circumstances even offers a peak into my worth as a person. So why carry those bags? Internally, I’ve made myself a promise that if I have to carry anything, I choose to carry peace, I choose to carry compassion, laughter, fortitude but above all,  I choose to carry love. 

Reflect on the things you’ve been carrying that never belonged to you. Set them down and never pick them up again.