Words I'd Like to Reclaim: Baggage

It's not as exciting as it used to be.

I admit it, I'm a Word Snob, but hear me out on this one.

Baggage used to be a really positive word. It was what you took with you on holidays. Think back on your first set of baggage: for many of us, a gift of baggage meant we were fully fledged and our parents couldn't wait to help us pack and move out. Our baggage was a symbol of our new independence. Remember investigating all those neat little zippered pockets? Remember planning your first holiday with the new baggage? Remember taking it out into the back yard and jumping up and down on it so it wouldn't scream 'travel virgin'?

Sadly, baggage has lost a lot of its romance. When people talk about their baggage these days, they are referring to the psychological mess they imagine inhabits their brain (no offense to people who actually DO have psychological problems; in my experience, however, they never refer to it as baggage). I used to work with a woman who spent 8 hours every shift going on about her baggage, which, as far as I could tell, was caused mostly by the fact that she was 24 and living with her mother.

Poor baggage. Let me reclaim you. Let me pack you full of cute travel-sized shampoos and mouth-washes. Let me fold my non-iron shirts in your loving embrace; place my smalls in your tender-loving care. Where shall we go? Amsterdam? Istanbul? Reykjavik?

The world is a wide and wonderful place. Pack your bags and leave that other baggage behind you.