How are your baggage handling skills?
If you’re like me you wait until the last minute like the night before your 6am flight or three hours before your 12pm flight. I always pack heavy – way more than I will need. I try to imagine all the moods I will be in during the trip and plan the outfits accordingly. Do you do that? Choose your outfit based on your mood? Maybe everyone does that, I don’t know.
For me, there are times I am feeling very bright, outgoing and flashy and I will put a loud outfit together that is bold and sometimes quirky – like two different earrings. Other times I feel very quiet and closed off and will dress in subtle colors and a plain style that will allow me to blend in more. Of course then there is the whole activity driven outfit – I could be feeling sporty and outgoing or sporty and quiet. Say, what if there might be a long walk along the beach after dinner at a fancy place? – I need an assortment of shoes to allow for comfort and style. Then there’s the concern of weather – I need stylish warm and cozy warm as well as stylish cool and cozy cool.
When the airlines started paying more attention to the weight of the bags and limiting how many you can bring for no extra charge – it put a damper on my shoe selection. I could fill an entire suitcase with just shoe options.
Have you seen the movie “As Good As It Gets”? When Jack Nicholson’s character is packing for the trip he lays everything out on his bed and sorts what to bring according to a list and chart on a clip board. Then cut to Helen Hunt’s character reaching up to get an old suitcase out of her messy closet and grabbing handfuls of clothes saying, “There’s no way to pack for this trip.” Then calling him to ask about where they are going and if she needs dressy clothes for a fancy dinner. I have always strived to be a packer like Jack but I am definitely the Helen type.
Packing a suitcase is the equivalent of going to a fortune teller – they are going to give you lots of general advice about your future sprinkled with bits of details you fed them and you leave knowing nothing more than you did before you walked into her booth. You can do all the predicting you want, but you really have no idea how it’s going to go. Packing is a mini lesson in being comfortable with the unknown.
We are all living knowing we really don’t know what tomorrow will bring … until we plan a vacation. Key word being “plan” and the implied financial investment fooling us into an idea of having some kind of control over what will happen. You plan where you are going, the form of transportation, the season when you are going, the resort and all its options, the key points of interest you plan to visit, the people you will be going with … so you feel pretty confident you can safely predict what you will need to bring to make the most of this long list of all the fun you’ll be having. No matter how many stories you have or have heard about vacations run amuck – there is a default reset that happens with each new vacation where we go into it thinking – THIS TIME will be different … better. Further reinforcing the confidence in your plan.
No matter what your packing style is, you are doing it in your best crystal ball mode of picturing and preparing for every possible scenario. Or maybe that’s just me?
I know there’s guys out there who just throw their 4 or 5 best outfits in a bag with underwear, socks and two pairs of shoes (dress and casual), some toiletries and done. No matter what happens along the trip they are perfectly fine with their packing decision and have no issue with surrendering to the excuse of “this is all I have” to wear whatever the hell they want to dinner.
No. Uh-uh. They ain’t gonna fly with me. If you are going on this trip with me I will be supervising your packing process and vetoing and supplementing items as I see fit. I will probably just pack for you. You’ll thank me later.
This is where the light bulb went *BING!*
This is why we call the past that we are carrying into our future our “emotional baggage”.
Our packing styles are metaphorically telling.
Where are we going?
How much are we bringing?
How much do we actually need?
How much are we willing to leave behind?
These four very powerful questions will not only help you pack for your next vacation … but they will also help you pack for your next relationship.
