What's in your backpack?

So, we each have a backpack.  Some of us choose a very elaborate, decorated backpack.  Some of us choose a very plain, solid colored backpack.  Some backpacks are large with very little content.  Some are small and ripping at the seams from being stuffed so full.  It’s really not important what size the backpack is, its color, its many pockets, buckles, strings, and zippers.  Each backpack holds inside of it some clues as to who we are.  These clues are little pieces of information about our life as we have lived it thus far.  In one backpack, there may be a memory of the loss of a parent; in another, a painful divorce.  Perhaps there’s a memory of the best vacation ever or of a passion-filled romantic experience.  There are names and places and people stuffed into these backpacks.  There are copies of documents such as medical reports, marriage licenses, divorce decrees, homeownership, birth certificates for ourselves and our children, lay-off notices, job promotions, bankruptcy filings, foreclosure notices, high school diplomas and college degrees - just to name a few.  We often carry our backpacks with us everywhere we go.  Sometimes we leave them unzipped so that others can view the contents.  We do this both purposefully and mistakenly.  We may be saying, “See who I am?”  “See what I’ve done?” and looking for acceptance for who we are and where we’ve been.  Some of us like to leave them zipped tight and constantly try to camouflage their size and weight.  We do this because we don’t trust others viewing what’s inside.  We don’t want to be judged by our past, especially the negative experiences.  Either way, the backpack is always there and everyone has one and everyone has their own personal way of dealing with what’s inside it.  I find myself in a place where I feel that I want to take my backpack off my shoulders and have it sit beside me.  I look at its size and shape and all of its pockets.  I see all of its zippers and how it’s been well worn and faded and how it so nicely protects what I keep inside.  I unzip the top and an “insufficient funds” notice from my bank pops out and lands on the ground in front of me.  I smile.  Ah, yes… one of those.  On a different day, maybe I would have rushed to crumple it up and stuff it back in the backpack.  I mean, that’s not something that I want others to see.   What would they think of me?  Would they decide that I can’t control my finances?  I can’t control my spending?  I’m not smart enough to keep track of the money in my checking account?  But in this place, this very wonderful place that I’m in, I see that my backpack is separate from me.  Sure, it contains clues about me.  Many of them would lead someone right to me, but many of them are just things that happened along the way, along my journey.  If you really want to see me, you would have to look past my backpack and into my eyes and breathe me in.  You also, would need to set your backpack to the side because I could not join you with it in the way.  You could not see me if I did not let you.  And in doing so I would see you as well.  This is connection.  This is where we put all of our judgments and stereotypes aside.  This is where thoughts do not form complete sentences.  They are reduced down to single word affirmations, like “Oh”, “Ah”, “Yes” and “Wow”.  And then the acknowledgements of “I see”, “I get it”, “I know”.