As anyone who has recently tried online dating will know, there are a lot of people out there looking for partners with ‘no baggage’. But this is a near-impossible ask, since we all carry some. Emotional baggage is made up of our past experiences and the associations we make between them, and the way they make us feel. Some of it is heavy and cumbersome, but some of it will be light and life affirming.
‘I prefer to call it luxury goods,’ says Susanna, a 49-year-old journalist who began dating a few years after her husband died of cancer. ‘We had a wonderful, long, loving, caring and joyous relationship. I am still both bolstered by the fact we had it, and saddened by the fact that I lost him. I don’t consider that to be baggage. It’s just part of who I am.’
Our baggage is made up of emotions associated with past and
