The Constant Stranger...

Sometimes, we cling on to things we don't need anymore because of the comfort associated with them... The danger in this is that we can become dependent on those things, as they begin to feed and sustain us. Next thing you know, we begin to identify ourselves by the baggage we're carrying around. And... why? I mean, the word baggage, unless you're referring to suitcases when used for travel, usually always has a negative connotation, and why do we want to associate ourselves with negative things? Particularly when the negative doesn't usually generate a positive outcome. How many of us have TRULY taken a negative and made it into something good? I feel I have now, for sure, but it hasn't always been that way. I know, before, I've always held it close to me, let it rule me, let it give me an excuse to be distant, cold, bitchy, and fearful. WHY???

I know, with me, I carried around the notion that if I didn't have "it" (my baggage), then I had nothing. I'm not sure why I felt that way, I kind of just did... I guess, since I didn't have anything current in the works, I guess my baggage proved that I had, at one time, been part of something... That makes no sense, but, hey, who says human emotion has to make a shit ton of sense? It very rarely has, it very rarely will, and who are we to tell it that it "should"?

Anyhow, it reminds me of a piece of sheer brilliance I read this evening in Corey Taylor's book, "Seven Deadly Sins." It goes a little something like this... "It is the fear of being the constant stranger: never being recognized, reconciled, or rewarded..."


Seriously... How awesome is that? Seriously... How TRUE is that? When you are a stranger, no one knows you... (duh, right?) When no one knows you, how will you ever be recognized for the awesome that you are, how will you ever be reconciled or rewarded with the end-all be-all of human accomplishment? For me, the statement is all about people who are searching for something. Something they don't know how to find within. Trust me, people... as a reformed validation seeker, I can assure you it's all right there... people loving you isn't going to give you what you need. YOU loving you will be more than you ever need, though.

I guess I decided my bags were too cumbersome. It was getting tiresome to explain why this or that bothered me, why I guarded myself in some ways but not others... it was just getting... OLD. and why was any of it even there? Did I even remember anymore? Well, yeah, but still... None of it is important anymore, none of it is doing me any good in the least... So I worked a little magick for myself today. I've buried things that are best left behind. I walked away without looking back, and now, I'm of the mind of, and, yes, I'm going to quote pure Corey Taylor genius again...

"let's throw away our old bags and buy new shit at the airport..."