When you pack your suitcase, what goes in first? Your shoes? Your makeup? That second dress you could probably leave, but I mean, what could another dress hurt? Now how is it arranged? Nice, most important clothes on top? PJ’s on bottom? Shoes on bottom, so they don’t wrinkle the clothes, or on top, so they save space for the more essential items?
Now, what if I asked you to pack a suitcase just of what mattered to you. Not only the physical, tangible things but everything else too, people, places, memories, moments, everything.
What goes in first? Your friends? Your family? Your first real love? Your last real love? Your childhood best friend? Your person? Your soulmate?
Now, what moments? That flutter from your first crush? That one kiss that changed it all? That first heartbreak? That first feeling of success? That first feeling of rejection?
Now, what gets thrown in as you begin to slide that zipper? Your childhood blankie? That polaroid you keep in your car of all your high school friends? Your first trophy? Your wilted prom corsage? Your first college acceptance letter? You pick, You chose. Fill it to the brim, squeeze it all in and zip it up.
Now, look, that suitcase holds everything that matters. That’s it, all of it. So look around, and everything that didn’t make it into that suitcase, leave it. Set the extra baggage down, pick up the one bag, and go. After all, life is a journey full of travels, and there is no time to be weighed down by excess baggage.