What Did I Get at the CVS? Advil, Chocolate, and Wisdom.

Photographed by Bradley Wentzel

“YOU CAN’T MOVE VERY FAST
IF YOU’RE CARRYING A LOT OF BAGGAGE.”

—April Holmes, Paralympic Gold Medalist, 100 meter dash

I found this quote the other day as I was flipping through a magazine at the CVS. Now I don’t do a lot of soul-searching while I’m waiting in a long line to pay for Advil and chocolate. Most of the time I’m wondering why the self-check out aisle is not working properly, or why I just didn’t buy the stuff when I was at the supermarket the day before. But sometimes a lesson just comes out of the blue.

I imagine that after losing her leg in a train accident this chick was pretty much not wanting to hear the silver lining to losing a major appendage, but I guess she did.

The advice appears to be basic common sense that people at airports or train stations follow. I mean if you’re running to make your plane or your train, you know that your carry-on baggage is going to slow you down and you might even miss that plane or train. I mean it would be easier if you had one of those carts. In truth it would be easier if you had no baggage. But nevertheless there you are running all crooked, hair flying everywhere, shoulders killing you, luggage straps not really doing their job, and your knees not really cooperating during this sprint to the gate.  It appears that sometimes in real life we’re doing the exact same thing and this airport/train station wisdom escapes us.

It’s easy to get weighed down by all the crap in your life that isn’t going right — an accident, a job, a relationship, family drama, bills, or whatever crisis is making you eat tubs of rocky road ice cream at midnight. I know. I’m guilty of this. I admit it, it is easy.

But this Holmes makes a good point. She smacked me with some common sense. If you’re tied to your past (AKA your baggage) you’re not going to get very far in the future. Common sense, yes. But sometimes we have brain farts and this wisdom escapes us. Or maybe we just don’t go to the airport on vacations as much as we’d like, so the whole baggage weighing you down isn’t a recurring metaphor. But it’s all good. I get reminders … reminders at places like the CVS. So drop your bags, man! Drop ’em and go.