Baggage (Re)claim

A knot sank into my stomach. It was 5 in the morning, we were running late to the airport, my significant (at that time) had 0 clue that I actually was moving back to California and planning to surprise him, and though I felt a little uneasy about launching myself back into the place that broke my heart just months prior…I had caught a second wind; much like when I am running hard, and think I cannot humanly go even a quarter mile further…yet, am somehow still doing it and pushing through the pain anyway. I anxiously sipped on my coffee in the passenger seat. What if my car hasn’t made it there yet? What if something crazy happens and renting this duplex falls through? What if there is a long line in the airport to check all of these bags?

Bags. That was one of my biggest concerns. All of the bags that I had to carry and check and take on board – making sure that the weight was distributed evenly, making sure I had all 6, making sure I could keep it all contained. Bags. Little did I know, that freaking bags would become my life mantra for the next 4 months. I stepped off the plane and walked outside of Burbank’s tiny airport, nervous and ambitious to restart my life on the West Coast. I had a head full of dreams and ambitions and expectations that I just knew would happen. I could feel it in my bones. I was petrified, yet bursting with excitement at the same time. After all, I was bold, I was adventurous, and I was tenacious, I’d remind myself. Well, you know what happened? My brain’s worst case scenarios came true. Almost every single one of them…down to every teeny tiny, nitty gritty, microscopic detail.

The week I replanted in CA, and was supposedly moving into the duplex in my ideal, Westside location…it fell through. So, I frantically searched for a temporary Airbnb. The Airbnbs were filling up by the hour. I had 0 leads for another apartment. I hadn’t started work yet, and quickly began living off of my savings. And this was within the first 5 days. Great start, right?! I had no clue what was coming. For almost 3 weeks, I suddenly harbored a deep empathy for some of the homeless I saw on benches, wasted and passed out on the sidewalk, or sleeping the day away in whatever corner of unforgiving, forever bustling, brick and mortar portion of Los Angeles they could cram themselves into. Every 2-3 days was not knowing where I would go next, deciding if I should book an Airbnb or hotel for 2-3 more days, sleep in my car to save money, or if I should go by the day, just in case a landlord let me move in on the spot. I fervently searched and sent in applications and messages for a new apartment lease, trying to find the balance between sounding professional and reliable and ambitious to move in, but also not hopelessly desperate and emotionally taxed, therefore seeming sketchy.

My boyfriend during this time reached out to his circle. Nobody could host me. We tirelessly googled Airbnbs that were safe, affordable, within reasonable distance to work (Los Angelenos know that one can live 20 miles away, but traffic can take a solid 2 hours), and bookable. Nothing. I broke down in the men’s dorm hall and cried. In 5 days, it felt like throwing money down a drain. It felt like I had already failed. I didn’t feel safe or supported or upheld. My relationship was rocky, my sanity was rocky, and now my entire life was rocky.

My first temporary stay was in a home with 3 men, if that gives you any idea of my sheer desperation. They were very kind and hospitable…but something about waking up to shirtless men making scrambled eggs or lounging around or the fact that all 3 of us slept upstairs…just felt…dirty. Weird. I don’t recommend it, and especially in Los Angeles. I needed to find another temporary home. Here we go again.

I was half living with strangers; half out of my car. The worst part was driving around with the bags. Bags. I was honestly repulsed by sitting in a car full of them. Something about it sickeningly reminded me that my life was currently unstructured, unstable, unsafe, and LA was very unforgiving to my need for security. Every time I opened the car door…bags. That was all I could see. It felt suffocating. It actually started to make me feel like I was going crazy. I didn’t want to unpack everything, just to repack it when the time came to move. So, I left them zipped up, and just rummaged around for what I needed as each day went by. I didn’t have access to anyone’s kitchen to prepare a meal, so I lived off of the same salad basics and precooked chicken from Vons, granola bars, and anything else cheap enough and not too artificially boxed in the mean time. Now, I had bags of groceries to add to the mix!

It’s quite common for a certain population of Los Angelenos to live out of their cars. You can tell by, what was that? BAGS. It made me wonder if people saw me retrieving a change of clothes from my trunk in the Costco parking lot, and assumed I was one of them. The only bag I kept with me was my backpack and a little duffle bag with the necessities. Everything else was stacked up in my SUV. In every seat, stuffed onto the floor, filling up the trunk and even the passenger side…bags. While I counted my blessings – I have a car, a stable job, savings, and access – half living out of my car; half living out of a stranger’s Airbnb with a male twice my senior as another guest…started to feel repulsing. I can say that those 2.5 weeks were among the most stressful of my life. My relationship was rocky, my pillars of support were a coast and time zone away, and I felt helpless, lonely, and incredibly anxious. And the bags? They were salt to the wound.

“I will seize the day when I can finally unpack all of these bags,” I would think to myself.

And the truth is this: I never fully unpacked those bags in LA. Ever. I temporarily moved in with a family and rented a room. And so? I left most packed up. And then I found a place of permanency in my favorite LA suburb. Still, the bags were never fully unpacked. Something in me just couldn’t do it. I would store away most belongings, or set out key pieces like my salt lamps and the few things that bring a room to life. Nevertheless, at least one or two still sat in my floor…packed. Zipped up.

Those bags started to agitate me. I would go about my day, commute, return, open my bedroom door, and there it was: A bag. On my floor. Unpacked. Anne Klein probably didn’t think that her designer luggage would cause this much distress in a 20 something. I deeply knew that unpacking them, sorting through everything inside, and finding a place for it all would make me feel more at home…but even still? I couldn’t bring myself to doing so.

Little did I know, on October 13th, 2019, my world would begin to crumble right before my eyes. My worst nightmares came true. The marathon I was supposed to KILL was instead a DNF. 3 days later, my 2.5 year relationship officially came to an end in the most brutal way. I had some less than pleasant situations in what once was my dream job, trust was shattered, and I left on the spot. No backup. No prospective in line. Just a 20 something and her savings account. A small group leader at a church that I loved and trusted…broke trust in similar ways (he was married too, which made matters worse)…and I found myself walking into church anxiously dodging the small group leader, and walking out scouting around to avoid my ex. Just getting in and out in 1 piece, no stress, no breakdown, was a mission in and of itself. 1 situation in LA would start to mend, and soon after, another unfortunate set of circumstances would crush my very soul. It felt like a scab being ripped off from a healing wound, and kind of took my breath away each time. I quickly learned that LA and its creatures did not have my best interest in mind. Instead, I found myself manipulated, used, heartbroken, and destroying myself to cope every. single. time. It was painful. So painful. I will spare the blood and guts for now, but the bubbly, smiling, happy girl who you are used to? Oh my goodness…I was anything but that girl during that time. The baggage on my floor was now baggage in my heart.

It was this downward, dark spiral that felt like I was drowning. I stopped eating. Drinking. Sleeping. Running. Creating. Doing anything I once enjoyed. I lost weight. I lost my sanity. I lost my joy. I lost myself. Loneliness and grief are a dangerous pair. I made myself look pretty and smile on the outside. In fact, a colleague even remarked a week after my breakup, “You seem really okay! I think you’re over it!” Her observations, though I wished could be true, were unfortunately a far cry from my reality. Depression was eating me alive, and my mind would become plagued by suicidal thoughts when I spent too much time alone. I found myself, at times, subconsciously praying or wishing that God would make a freak accident happen, just to pluck me out of the world that felt so isolating, so dark, so scary. It was overwhelming. It was ugly. A knife to my heart would have felt better. There were moments I would glance in the mirror and think, “Who even are you?” I would awaken in a haze, just as fatigued as I went to bed, and apathetically sit myself down, staring blankly at the wall. My hair was falling out in the shower. My skin was always cold. My appetite was diminished. Cravings for caffeine and alcohol just to survive the day, were becoming uncomfortably familiar. I felt like a dead girl. I looked like a dead girl. I was isolated and beginning to crack. This is not how I wanted to feel. This was not how I was created to feel…and I hated it.

Bags. I had baggage in my bedroom floor to unpack, and baggage inside that I desperately needed to unzip, sort through, and unpack. I truly believe that our darkest, most excruciatingly painful moments are often what allow us to taste the sweetness of God’s mercy and grace. Relief would come in spurts, but it was mostly days of begging God for comfort. I needed help. I needed to heal. I needed to finish unpacking all of these bags and bandaging these wounds.

Unpacking my bags meant making some of the hardest decisions of my life. So, I resolved: I broke up with my boyfriend, broke up with my job, and now I am breaking up with Los Angeles.

Over 10 years of praying for a way to make it out there, and now, I was leaving. My mindset used to be, “What’s in it for me?” but I continue to learn that it should be more like, “How can I be refined and understand God’s character through this?” 2 months later, and it feels wild to actually say…I am happy again. Those words are something that has taken really, really hard work. It has required making difficult decisions in order to heal, revisiting some of my most haunting and painful memories, facing my baggage head on, hours of counseling and seeking therapy, a freaking ton of forgiveness (much in the works!) (also hard work!), taking my thoughts CAPTIVE, CHOOSING joy, CHOOSING Jesus, and CHOOSING to unpack the bags I would rather just stare at.

And last week, I unpacked the last bag that has just been sitting in my floor since returning home – memories and reminders of the past stored up inside. I procrastinated; just left it there…much like my Los Angeles apartment. Here’s the thing though: It wouldn’t magically unpack itself. I had to do the hard work and face all of that STUFF. I am learning that just as our suitcases cannot unpack themselves, so it is with our internal baggage. It’s those things we prefer to keep silent, hidden, and unspoken. There is comfort and safety in keeping everything inside zipped up tight, but comfort and safety are not words to live by. They are not words I want to live by. And understanding how Jesus said, “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword,” (Matt. 10) I don’t think those are words that He desires for us to live by. Unzipping those bags, mess, “stuff” inside and all – is not the most pleasant at first. But as we begin to unpack and sort through the mess, we begin to see that it can actually become organized and we actually can name what it is and where to put it. God WANTS wholeness for you. For me. He wants to work within us and begin to heal the deepest parts. I believe that often times, for Him to use us to our fullest and most efficiency, we MUST undergo this process of allowing him to unzip us.

Let’s stop driving around with those bags. Let’s stop leaving them in the floor of our hearts. Let’s get down on our knees, UNZIP them, clean them out, and DO something with them. It reminds me of Jesus telling the paralyzed man to “PICK UP his mat,” and “WALK!” (John 5). AKA: Be FREE. Be HEALED. Be WHOLE. GO! He wants to carry our burdens. He wants to soothe our weary soul. He wants to give us rest. (Matt. 11) He wants to make us whole and set us free and see our broken hearts healed. And He wants to help us unzip, unpack, and organize our packed bags, sort through the mess, and show us what to do with it.

So GO: Unpack your bags.