Lucky #13

When I was 17 I fell in love, like many 17 year olds do. When I was 24 I moved in with him, thinking my life would end up like the fairytales my mother read me before bedtime as a child. When I was 25, I moved out.

I stood in the doorway of my kitchen gazing into the living room, all my belongings in boxes, piled high to the ceiling against the wall of my new apartment. I wondered how I accumulated all this stuff, all this baggage that I considered important enough to move with me from place to place as I traveled through life. This home is lucky #13 – and it was going to be where I would connect back to me, forget the baggage that was following me for years, and move forward. I was ready to go anywhere, as long it was forward.

But of course, somehow, some way, that baggage found me. It only took a few months after I moved into my new home for him to arrive on my front porch, knocking on the door, asking to come up. I let him in and back into my life. With him I felt whole, as if I could carry the weight of the world on my shoulders as long as he was holding my hand down the path of life. But it didn’t take long until once again I felt myself being weighed down by the sorrows of a life I cannot change, cannot help, and cannot continue to carry with me.

It is now time to move once again. A year has passed and my signature on that legal document that made #13 my home for 13 months has expired. I find myself with boxes and heavy baggage yet again, and there are important decisions to be made. If I want a change that will last, I must leave the heavy baggage behind and make decisions that are different than those I’ve made before.

The decision now is different – I leave the heavy stuff behind, gaze ahead into the distance and try walking the path less traveled. There is no plan, no itinerary, no goal, no expiration date, no baggage - just life, time, and heart.