Baggage....who has more...I say we're all equal!

So you have an ex-wife/ex-husband, maybe even a few children, or a variety of ex-lovers that always seem to call and creep their way back into your life because truth be told, they're still a part of your life (trust me, I know). Maybe you simply have one long lost love who continues to invade your soul; simple it is not. Whatever shape or form your past may be wrapped up into...it all comes out into a nice pretty package I like to call baggage.

Yours no larger than mine, no smaller than mine, just equal to mine. If you've lived, you have baggage; if you've loved, you have baggage; and if you're living and loving each day (like I am), the baggage is inevitable.

So when I speak of a prospective interest, I find myself frustrated when others ask if he's been married before or if he has children, and ashamed at the fact that I've done the same myself, but do we ever stop to think of our very own baggage, and ask ourselves the very same question about what we're still carrying around each day.

I've encountered many men throughout my life, and a handful of them still mean so very much to me; a few were boyfriends, others were special encounters that somehow lasted for a few years, some were just dates, others were friendships that escalated into more.....so yes, I would agree that I have a bit of baggage myself. I'm not ashamed, yet I'm not proud, but it's my past and there's no denying that these encounters have impacted my life, made me this woman that I am, and left me with some leftover heartache as well.

So maybe I haven't been married and no kids have graced my presence (based on sheer luck I might add), but it doesn't mean that I'm still not hurting inside and struggling to release some of the baggage that still lingers....

We make it what it is, we hold on to it for as long as we choose to, until we want to let it go, or maybe we never let it go, maybe it's there to teach us where we've been, where we don't want to return, and it still holds all the beautiful memories we made along the way.