Baggage.

I have many a thing to complete this morning, but a post has been screaming inside me since I woke up. I must let this one out, or face complete brain takeover in a mere few hours as it slowly devours the back right corner of my brain and works forward.

Please bear with me; I'm about to make a very strange correlation between two somewhat unlikely objects.

I have a sickness. This sickness is one I know I've carried for a very long time. So long, in fact, that I have long since become comfortable with it.

I love to pack for trips. And not in an easygoing, "this will work" sort of way. I'm tactical. Methodical. Rabid.

Step one is not look in the closet. Step one is make a list. Make a list of everything I'd like to take. Then, cross-reference that entire list to make sure everything is not only coordinated, but interchangeable with each other, as well as able to cover a variety of moods and temperatures. Top it off with everything has to say *me*. If not, it doesn't make the cut. If I don't really need it, or if I can't picture several instances in which it might be useful, it goes.

Once my list is finalized, time for step two. I assemble, fold, manipulate, combine, roll and origami-style tweak everything into place. Yes, I can travel for a week (probably much longer) from a single carry-on suitcase. Once that bag is packed, ultimate satisfaction is achieved.

Here's where I promised a strange comparison, and where it gets wierd: Packing a suitcase is, at least for me, very much akin to accommodating any given room in a dwelling. Contents: A selection of things most important to you, assembled in a way they fit best in the space, all of them saying *you*.

And this brings me back around to something I have been dealing with for a good year and a half.

Imagine: You step off a plane. You pick up your bag. You get to your hotel, open it up, and dive in looking for the "comfort item" you packed. Maybe it's your favorite pajamas. Maybe it's your bedside crystal. Maybe it's your favorite t-shirt in the color that makes you feel so good. Guess what? None of it is there. As a matter of fact, everything in your bag is someone else's. Now you're stuck on a trip with someone else's stuff. And you have to make do.

That "stuff" was important to that other person at some point in time. But it's since been left behind. It's still *your* bag. It's time to change the contents.

Now imagine that suitcase full of things that aren't yours is the house you've been living in for almost two years. Again, it's time to change the contents.

It's impossible for me to pack well for others. It just doesn't work that way.

Side note:
Today's also a day where my brain picks a thousand different things to think about all at once so I don't have to dwell on some things that really are in the back of my mind. I've been doing that for six years now.