It was tiny, but to a small five-year-old girl, it was huge and the
most beautiful thing she had ever seen in her life and the best part - it was
hers. Her mom even told her so. Before today, she had not even known what a
suitcase was. Reaching out eagerly, she
ran her hand along the silver band that wrapped around the edge, touching the
latches that were firmly closed. They
were shiny and felt cool to the touch.
She wanted to see inside. “Can I
open it, Mommy?” Not getting a
response, her small face turned, surprised to see her mom crying. Choked with emotion, unable to speak, the
mother nodded her head, watching as the five year old eagerly opened the little
blue suitcase. The year was 1972.
Many of my childhood memories are faded and some completely
gone, but I remember that day, forty years ago, as if it was yesterday. It is strange how our mind does that, picking
and choosing what we are to remember and see in our minds eye. I recall watching curiously and, I have to
admit, excitedly at the time, as my mother placed inside two pairs of pants,
two shirts and underwear. Every item was
new. I was the seventh child born out of
ten. I never had “new” before. I could tell, but did not understand why,
that beautiful suitcase was causing her so much sadness and pain. Even when she sat my sister and I down on the
bed, explaining that we would need to leave for a little while, but promising
that she would get us back and that someday we would be a family again. My five year old mind couldn’t comprehend or
understand her words but I nodded my head as I stroked the soft blue box. Leading us both outside she walked us halfway
to the car, before turning to run back into the house. A kind woman then took us and gently steered
us to the waiting car. We sat in the
back with each of our suitcases propped up next to us, the silence broken by my
older sister crying next to me. I felt
panic start to rise as comprehension finally dawned inside of me forcing me to
face this new reality. Scrambling to my
knees, I looked out of the back window as we slowly drove away from the only
home and family we had ever known. I did
not cry until I saw my brother, who was trying to run after us. He looked so sad. I wanted him to feel better, so I waved until
I could no longer see him.
After driving for a very long time, we arrived in Jackman, Maine,
at what would be for my sister and me, the firsts of four foster homes. Hopping out, I grabbed my little blue
suitcase, clutching it in my tiny hands as new people approached, the woman
turned to the social worker asking where the “rest of the stuff” was before
looking in horror at my tiny case when she was told that that was it. I remember not liking the look on her face,
and once where there was joy at my “new” items, I now felt a new emotion flood
through me. I felt shame. This was all I had and it was obvious to me,
even at five, it was not enough.
That little blue suitcase is the only thing I have from that
time in my life. From family to family,
town to town, it has followed me, even through adulthood. Ten years ago, I was packing to move, and I
had spent the better part of the week complaining to who ever would listen,
about how many useless items we had accumulated and no longer used over the
years. Deciding to tackle the basement,
I shuddered at what could possibly be down there. Opening a box that had not been touched since
the last move, and was still taped shut, and marked MISC.- I looked inside and caught the flash of a
familiar blue. Kneeling down on the
concrete floor, I gently pulled it out allowing myself to feel every emotion
that was literally tearing through me.
Snapping the clasps, the sound transported me back to my childhood and I
felt again the pain, greeting it as if it were an old friend
I am not sure how long I sat there, holding the suitcase but
there was a shift in me that I cannot even begin to describe. I realized in a
flash, that I had unknowingly defined my life by that piece of luggage. Jacob Marley had nothing on me, with all of
his clashing and clanging chains, I had a 16”x12”x5” box, weighing me down and
Lord, it was heavy.
That was my reality check. A stinking, little, blue,
freaking suitcase caused me to stop, pause, and ask my self “is this all there
is to life?” Walking down to the
basement before I had this moment, and walking back up from the basement after
this moment, I had literally become a different person. Just like Ebenezer Scrooge, seeing the ghost
of Christmas past, my moment brought the realization crashing down on me, that
I was a product of “never having quite enough stuff”. I allowed someone else’s expectations and
words dictate to me, who I was and who I was to become because that is how THEY
perceived me. In this case - I had nothing
so I was nothing. The worst part, I
allowed this thought process to continue my whole life in almost every aspect
of who I was to become, even my dreams of who I wanted to be. Nothing was as glaringly poignant as my
mind’s eye once again brought me back to that day in high school when a teacher
(who I adored) wrote on one of my essays “this is good, but we know you will
never become a writer.” I believed what
she wrote and I stopped writing. After
“finding” that suitcase again, I was so angry for so many months. Angry at myself for what I considered “wasted
years.” Seriously?!?! ENOUGH!
So, at thirty five, I shifted my thought process and asked
myself two questions as I held that, now empty, forty year old suitcase on my
lap – What if none of it was true and what would I do, if I was not afraid of
what other people thought. My answer was
easy, and before the fear could encase me in its sticky, confining, web again,
I whispered aloud - “I would write.”
The funny thing about epiphanies is, when you know you need
to change, you quickly realize - change is hard work and there are many people
who do not want you to change. It took
me another eight years to sort out my life into some semblance of order by
getting rid of toxic relationships, and figuring out this new me. I stepped out of my box and I opened a store,
(it failed and still paying a high price for that one.) The difference being, that I would not allow
that failure to define who I was as I had in the past. I took the many lessons I learned and allowed
them to make me stronger.
Through my process of healing, I wrote, and wrote, and wrote
some more. I filled journals with poetry
and short stories. I wrote
manuscripts. Some of my work - absolute
crap, but some of it I knew, in my heart, was really good. I did not care
either way – it was mine! I wrote because I embraced who I was and I had
finally given myself permission and allowed myself to be who I was. Every pent
up word that had been clamoring to get out of my head that had been stifled for
years, flowed out of me.
Through my writing and acknowledgement of my past - I have
found a comforting peace I had never experienced before. I started to tell my story and through every
imperfection, through every moment of pain and dysfunction that makes up me
- I started to see a change happen in
other people. Not to everyone, but to
some, and that is all the difference that matters.
Life is hard. Life is complicated. Life is terrifying. Life is a beautiful
thing.
