Baggage.

19 01 2012

For work, I travel a lot. Last year I was gone almost very other week. 9 countries, heaps of cities, tons of miles. People who travel a majority of their time learn the tricks – how to get through security without any problems, which airports have the best restaurants, who to schmooze to get upgraded…and they also have their ‘must have’ items they bring with them.

I accumulated a lot of stuff over the past year. Tomorrow I leave for the first work trip of the year – the first of 18 scheduled ones so far (and I manage to squeeze in some personal trips and work tacks on another couple when I am too idle in Austin). Who am I kidding, I love every minute of it and would travel nonstop if I could.

On my last flight (coming home from Boston after celebrating New Years there) I watched ‘Up in the Air.’ I loved it and completely related to the main character…and also turned the movie off 3/4 of the way through. (I know how that shit ends and I liked feeling good about relating to Georgey…didn’t care to share in his doom). Oh, spoiler alert: It ends on a kind of depressing note, except for his weird sister, but I digress.

So, on all my trips last year, I brought this backpack. Throughout the year my bag got heavier and heavier. I could go off on a metaphor about how that represents my life and I’m hauling all of this extra weight…….oh my god, this IS like ‘Up in the Air…’ I’ll stop. Promise.

The point of this entry though is to explain what I did tonight. I emptied out my backpack completely. A new year, a fresh start. Annnd I just wanted to see what kind of shit was in there.

So here it is, everything I pulled out of my magic bag after 12 months of nonstop travel: