One afternoon I was driving along listening to Mary J Blige. She was singing about baggage and its affect on her life...man I love her openness. Anyway I was dealing with some insecurities and a male friend. I called him up laid out what was in my head and the fact that MJB was the culprit behind the call. He thought that was funny, but seemed to appreciate my honesty. He was just as honest in responding. "I call em like I see em," his favorite phrase about his honesty. I was thinking about that tonight and how tough it is to travel through life. I have so much baggage it falls out the overhead compartment. I have stuff under my seat. The flight attendant took something and stored it in another bin, and I paid extra fees for all the trunks I checked. For example, I was in my favorite store yesterday. The cashier was lazy, rude and basically not a nice person. Yes I have proof. She would not greet anyone approaching her register. She would not pick up their items off the counter to her right. She stood and made a customer bring her item around the counter, by simply standing and refusing to acknowledge the customer where she was standing. Well it was my duty to be just as uncooperative as she was...in my humble opinion. So I put my items where the previous customer had and glared a nonverbal challenge. I had already made a snide remark to the other rude cashier. She picked up my items and began to ring them up. I told her I didn't need a bag and she could put everything back into the laundry basket I was purchasing. No grunt, no uh hu, nothing, just her slow movements as though being at that register was the worse form of hell. At that moment I'm thinking waterboarding can't be that bad, and I know just the girly to try it on! She was so lazy she pushed things around in the basket rather than take them out to ensure she got everything. She didn't ring up everything and being the queen of nice nasty, passive aggressiveness I didn't tell her. I snatched my receipt and walked out. Mind you I felt perfectly justified in what I did...until I related the scene to a friend. I told her about the injustices I "suffered" from the other cashier before the part I shared with you, so I expected nothing but sympathy from her. She was shocked at the right points, indignant appropriately, however she stated "maybe she was having a bad day." First thought is and that's my problem how? Here's how it went down really. I walked in the store, a bit peeved that my friend cancelled on me. Sure I had run into another friend, but I was still licking my wounds from earlier. I get to the register where there is a very long line. No one seems to be pressed about this and the one cashier is taking her sweet time. My friend cancelled to help someone and had apologized. Now I could have been a stank butt, dropping and dragging the offense until the cows came home. If I did that he and I both would not like me very much. As it is, his cancelling touches my overnight bag of baggage. That bag contains my easily accessible insecurities. Things like being dark skinned, short hair, less than 5'7, and other things that lie in wait just below the surface. That's the bag that makes it easy to go from 0 to 60 in no time. Ever ask yourself, "why was I so upset about that?" Someone probably opened your overnight bag. Okay stay with me. I'm trying to stuff displaced feelings back into the overnight bag standing in line. Another cashier opens a line and of course some of us make a beeline for her. A young man who appeared to be either White or a White looking Latino leads the pack going to the new line, however the White cashier calls out to me in a disapproving tone, "Ms! The next person in line is to go to that register you stay in one line." I look at her, I look at him and don't move until she speaks to him. When he gets back in line, I get back in line. The overnight bag just popped open again. Did she just try to put me on front street rather than the guy because of color? I'm feeling like the kid that got wrongly accused of talking in class. She then proceeds to ask the three people in front of me if they wish to go to the other line, each declining. Rather than ask me she goes back to ringing up her customer. Well I'm not gonna let that go. With as much sarcasm as I can muster, "Excuse me, I will assume you will now allow me to get in that line?" It gets the reaction I want. Several in line laugh and she sheepishly confirms my "assumption". That's when I encountered salesperson of the month. Honestly she probably was having a bad day. Someone might have popped the lock on one of her checked trunks down in cargo, but like most of us, she didn't have the luxury of hiding out until she had put a new lock in place. This whole tit for tat dog and pony show was more than likely about the fact that we were all just trying to deal with baggage, which had very little to do with that moment.
How does communication ever get successfully transmitted considering all the ways things can go awry. That's what made me think about issues and baggage in terms of travel. I'm headed to bed and this may have been a series of ramblings, but I wanted to get it out. I do know that I want to have a fire sale and get rid of some of my baggage. Nah, I'm not going to sell it. I'm going to have a huge bonfire. I absolutely refuse to continue to allow old stuff to stand in the way of new happiness.
ok, you was wrong all the way around. 1st... the lady at the store , you don't know what she is going through, you might have made matters worse for her, you smile might have made her day.... I have a friend that was a cashier at a store,she lost her job, had 4 children all under the age of 10. She was shaying in a motel, last I heard she was going to have to live on the street, or in a mission, that would't talk her 2 sons...
ReplyDelete2... your baggage, let me tell you this about baggage, i carry mine every day of my life, my 1st wife died in 2000, i left her around 1994, lost track of her about 2 yrs before she died, she wanted me to come back to her, i often wonder...would she be alive today if I did go back... my 2nd wife left me at the end of 2001, said she had to find herself, i do know she was getting help, I waited for almost 3 yrs for her..people change as I did, the things I put her throught and said to her, and the things I did, i think about it everyday or every other day...and the kicker to this is she still wants me back,or did anyway...WTF!!! does she see, as I said eariler all i see is a lonely man looking back at me in the morror. I mean my mom doin't even love me, how do you deal with that, that I want to know....I guess what i'm trying to say is your always going to have baggage, it just depends on how you carry it, the insecurities you'll still have, not as much or as bad but will have them none the less..
3..as for your friend that cancelled on you, I'm sure he was sorry that he did,you met other friends there...right, so why did you get upset..you wasn't alone, things come up that you have no control over, like my friend that lost her job and place to stay, she has alot of baggage and I don'r mean the kids...anyway...guess what i'm trying to say is your baggage is your baggage,if you look at other people and what they are carring, i'm sure you'll rather keep your than take on someone elses, and a smlie goes along way,heel being nice goes along way with people, you don't know they are going through,but them again they could be assho;es.. I'm sure your better then to stoop to that level....
Hi Boise, First let me say I appreciate the fact that you would actually take the time to read my ramblings, and then take the time to share your thoughts. With that said, these are my feelings and as a good friend told me, its my journey. I worked with this man who would say, "feelings are just feelings. They are neither right nor wrong." Thats my law of the land on this blog. Since thats the case, you are entitled to feel I was wrong and I don't have to affirm or dissuade you from that.
ReplyDeleteYou actually reaffirmed what I was getting at in the post. Baggage is like karma, it has a way of coming back to bite you in the butt. I use the term karma generically and not as an endorsement of any religious practices. I assume this link has written permission to have reprinted this. I don't have permission so I'm gonna refer you to them. Read this and then come back for the rest of my comment. http://codependents.us/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=15
Let me take that in a different direction. Now from time to time, like the day a child is born, the day you get your dream job, your wedding day, the day you hit your target weight loss goal, you get to hang up, lay down, forget about your baggage (if you are lucky), but when that moment is over and sometimes in that moment you have to pick your baggage back up, unless you resolve it. We all have some baggage. However that doesn't mean we have to carry all of it the rest of our lives. Travel is not a way of life so who wants to carry a samsonite garment bag all the time? You have the choice to chose what baggage you will continue to carry, how it will affect your life...BUT you can only make an informed decision if you have all the facts clearly laid out for you. From what you've shared, (and this is not a professional opinion, just a blogger responding to a comment)you have baggage you could possible use some assistance sorting out and deciding what you want to continue carrying. You sound like a good person at heart (based on how you're processing the past), and that you want to live with, and in spite of your baggage. I encourage you to do some reading, join a group or maybe even find someone to talk with one on one.
You are right that my response can change a situation, however sometimes I don't have it to give. And, as a child and adult who for a long time took the responsibility to make the world ok for others while short changing myself I am learning to chose my responses based on what I can live with long after that moment has passed. A moment may seem crucial at the time, but afterwards when the dust has settled it really wasn't all that. Let me put it another way, if I'm going to shed blood for someone, it needs to be for something I believe in more than the person I'm shedding the blood for. Ever did something for someone you thought was momentous and 2 hours, 2 days, 2 weeks later it was as though it never happened? They were asking for another drop of blood? Shedding blood for me isn't always shed blood for the receipient. My being nice to the sales clerk could have either been accepted as the nice gesture it was or trampled on with continued rudeness. To conclude this, that's the trouble with unresolved baggage it gets in the way of having a better interaction or even deciding if you want to shed or keep your blood for a better interaction.