Baggage

My family and I are leaving in two days to fly to Oklahoma to celebrate my in-laws 50th wedding anniversary. It will be wonderful to help them celebrate and it will be great to see the family.

But it makes me think about the journey there. Flying. With a 4 year old and a 17 month old.

Yikes.

Though I am not proud to admit it, I have done quite a bit of stressing about this and given a lot of thought to how we will make it through with our sanity intact. My wife and I have thought of ideas for activities to do on the plane, how we might help our little guy get out his ever-present antsiness, how we might help our oldest pass the time in a flying climate-controlled tube when he so often longs to be outside in the fresh air.

Then there's the baggage. We need clothes. We need stuff to get us (ok, mainly me and the boys) smelling nice. We need things to keep our boys busy on the plane. We need to think through weather and activity possibilities. How do we carry all of it? To check or not to check? That is indeed the question.

There are needs that my family has. There are multiple ways that we could pack the items needed to meet those needs. There are then several options for how we will carry and store it all. Carry-ons, purses, backpacks, diaper bags, checked suitcases, pockets. There are lots of options.

In the past, I have silently wished for being able to travel with nothing but a book as I feel the weight of my backpack, a diaper bag, and a suitcase all while cradling a screaming baby in the "football carry" position.

The reality is that we have baggage for a reason. Some of those things we carry are to make the destination more comfortable. Some of the baggage will make the journey more comfortable. Some of the baggage is from me trying to be prepared for every scenario leading to significant case of overpacking. Some of the baggage is from learning our lesson the hard way. Some of the baggage is essential, some of it is not. As a result of past trips, or essentials needed for this one, we may not be able to do anything about the number of bags that we carry, but how we distribute that baggage and weight can make all the difference.

I saw the same in my students this week. I saw a lot of the baggage that my students are carrying and it filled me with sorrow and even some frustration. There is baggage that just goes along with being a middle school kid. There is some baggage that no kid should ever have to carry. There is baggage that is placed on the students from events in their personal life. There is baggage placed on the students from their experience in school. There is baggage and it is weighing them down.

While there is sorrow when I see the baggage that my students attempt to carry, I am at the same time filled with hope. My hope is that we can work together to shed some of the weight. While I may not be able to remove some of the baggage, perhaps we can work together to redistribute the weight so they can stand a bit straighter.

Regardless of my frustration with my own baggage for our trip, or the sorrow and frustration of watching my students struggle under the weight of all that they carry, sometimes baggage is inevitable. I have seen in my own life this week that my own attitude and outlook can add (or less often subtract) to that weight. No matter how much I may complain or lament that the baggage is there, it does nothing to help me or my students bear the weight.

Looking ahead to this trip and to this school year, I will focus on baggage management and elimination rather than baggage lamentation. I will do my best to find ways to ease the burden for my wife and our boys, as well as my students. My family and my students deserve to see a husband, dad, and teacher spend more time trying to assist with the weight and less time moaning and groaning about its presence. I have found, but often forget, that helping bear the weight of another's burden will often bring balance and relief to the load that I carry.

Here's to helping each other bear the weight.