“It’s not the load that breaks you down. It’s the way you carry it.” Lena HorneWhen Halle Berry paid tribute to Lena Horne at the Oscars this year and made reference to this quote I couldn’t help but see the parallels between travel and life.
For anyone who has ever carried a backpack you’ll understand the importance of travelling lightly. But what other things do we carry on our backs that weigh us down? Perhaps it’s time to shed those layers too.I’m convinced that we spend the first part of our life building ourselves up only to spend the rest of our life dismantling everything to get back to where we started – in terms of who we really are – in essence. Our bodies will force us to do that anyway – as we age and slow down – but the trick will be to do so with awareness and grace. And it’s never too early to begin.
What do I want to carry with me into my older years and beyond? Certainly not possessions. I’ve travelled enough and moved houses too many times to know that they are too cumbersome and costly to transport. And personal baggage is a much bigger burden.
Usually my medical kit and pen and paper are my necessities of travel, within my backpack, but even those can be lost, stolen, or abandoned. Therefore the only essential item I really need to carry is trust. Trust that everything will be alright. We come into this world that way and we’ll leave it that way. So why do we lose it enrolee? Yes, the load of life sometimes does get quite heavy and we may not see how we’ll shoulder it but we must not give up trust that everything will be alright, one way or another. It’s all that we have to hold onto – that cannot be taken away from us. Carry on we must but, as with everything, it’s all about how we do it. Tread softly and surely…one step at a time.
~Christine Overvelde
