Hello Lovers,

Welcome to D. Layne In Perspective. The lover’s blog, the place where you can come to read about various topics dealing with relationships as a whole, but of course, from my perspective. D. Layne’s perspective. For my inaugural blog, I am going to visit a topic that we all know and love. Something that everyone of us had to deal with in some capacity. Baggage. Baggage can be the bane of some lover’s existence, while some may be able to learn from it and use it to fuel potential future fires. Whoa, that’s a lot of “f’s”. That may be a bad omen. But let’s explore a bit more in this first post of mine.

Peggy McIntosh has a certain theory regarding an invisible knapsack that needs to be unpacked. She usually pops up while people are speaking on student affairs and more specifically white privilege at “P.W.I.’s” (Predominantly White Institutions). In her Article, Peggy goes on to speak on the guilt that white’s carry around in this invisible knapsack due to white privilege and the eye opening exercises to make people realize that. While speaking about relationships with a colleague and friend of mine, I realized that relationships…have a similar concept regarding this invisible knapsack.

I say this in direct relation to the “Knapsack” aspect of the theory. We as lovers pack our invisible knapsack from the moment we learn good touch, bad touch to our most deep and fulfilling relationships. We take all of these interactions and we begin packing our luggage. What is it to really have baggage in, or bring baggage to a situation? Is it insecurities, is it being a cheater or being cheated on, children from another relationship, defense mechanisms that you may have from previous situations, still holding on to a previous relationship, etc. All of these are items that us lovers stuff into our invisible knapsacks until it is overflowing with “Stuff” that we carry with us for the remainder of our lives. All of these things make us who we are, however it is our job not to let them define us. It is our job to use them, learn from them, and move on from them when

Is it possible for us to not amass this baggage? That, for so many of us, holds us back from possibly very meaningful relationships with new interests. We spend our entire lives packing this bag of experiences, hurt, joy, and pain. Fellow lovers, we need to ask ourselves what it takes to unpack this knapsack, and find that which may help us to do so. For it is the only way that we can truly internalize and learn from our past experiences. For it is the only way we can walk into a new situation free and clear and ready to love, the right way. Unpack your bag Lovers…Unpack your bag.

To all the lovers out there, that’s my perspective, and I’m sticking to it.

~D. Layne~