Every summer used to begin under the bed.
Not with the trip itself. Not with the first step onto a beach, the first swim in a lake, or the first night in a different place.
It began with the suitcase.
It was always hiding there through the winter and spring, flat and forgotten, gathering a little dust in the dark. But sometime in early summer, when the days became longer and the air smelled faintly of grass and warm pavement, my parents would pull it out.
Suddenly, that ordinary old suitcase became the most magical thing in the house.
As a child, I believed that the moment the suitcase appeared, summer had officially started.
The trip might still be weeks away. Sometimes a month. Sometimes more. It did not matter whether we were going somewhere with my parents or whether I would spend a month in my grandparents’ village. The excitement was always the same. It arrived early, like the first swallow before spring fully comes.
One or two months before the journey, I would already begin to feel it.
That strange, beautiful trembling.
The feeling that something wonderful was waiting for me just around the corner.
As the days passed, the excitement grew bigger. A week before leaving, I could hardly sleep. I would lie in bed and think about everything that was coming. The road. The new place. The small adventures that had not happened yet.
And under the bed, or beside the wardrobe, the suitcase would already be open.
Open long before the trip.
I would stand in front of it and begin to choose what to bring, even though there was still plenty of time.
Suddenly, every shirt became important.
Every toy.
Every book.
I would put something inside, then take it out again. I would change my mind ten times. Maybe I would need this small car. Maybe that comic book. Maybe two pairs of shoes were not enough. Maybe three were too many.
The suitcase was not just a place for clothes.
It was a container for dreams.
Each thing I placed inside was really another way of saying, “I cannot wait.”
I think that is why the waiting sometimes felt almost more magical than the trip itself.
Before the journey, everything is still possible.
The road ahead has not yet become ordinary. The days have not yet settled into routine. The hotel room is still perfect in our imagination. The village still smells like sunshine and tomatoes from the garden. The beach still has not been spoiled by too much wind or too many people. In our minds, everything is shining.
As children, we know how to live inside that beautiful space between “not yet” and “soon.”
We know how to enjoy the waiting.
In fact, sometimes we enjoy it so much that it becomes part of the vacation itself.
The trip does not begin when we arrive.
It begins the first time we imagine it.
Somewhere along the way, many of us lose that.
As adults, we still travel. We still plan vacations. But we often speak about them differently.
We talk about how tired we are.
We talk about how badly we need a break.
We think about the beach chair, the hotel, the swimming pool, the time off, the chance to finally do nothing.
We count the days not with excitement, but with exhaustion.
Vacation becomes less about wonder and more about recovery.
We become so busy arriving that we forget how to dream before the journey even begins.
Even our suitcases have changed.
We pack the night before. Quickly. Practically.
A few shirts. A charger. Toothbrush. Maybe sunscreen.
No ceremony. No magic.
The suitcase no longer stays open in the corner of the room for days like a promise.
But perhaps that is exactly what we are missing.
Because the real beauty of a summer trip was never only the destination.
It was the looking forward.
It was the open suitcase standing quietly in the room like a doorway.
It was the way your heart felt lighter every time you walked past it.
It was the way an ordinary Tuesday could suddenly become exciting simply because, in ten days, something beautiful would happen.
Summer taught us that anticipation is its own kind of happiness.
Maybe that is why some of my favorite memories are not only from the places themselves, but from the days before them.
The sound of my mother folding clothes.
The smell of sunscreen bought too early.
The list on the kitchen table.
The tickets.
The sleepless night before leaving.
The feeling that life was about to open like a door.
And maybe there is a lesson hidden inside that old suitcase.
Perhaps rest is not really about lying still and doing nothing.
I do not think true rest comes only from a beach chair or a swimming pool.
For me, rest means something else.
It means changing the scenery.
Leaving behind the same streets, the same responsibilities, the same routine that we carry every day.
It means seeing the people we love in a different light.
It means laughing in a place where we have never laughed before.
It means becoming, for a little while, a different version of ourselves.
More open.
More curious.
More alive.
The most beautiful vacations are not always the most expensive or the most perfect.
Sometimes they are simply the ones that remind us how to feel excited again.
How to wait.
How to dream.
How to leave a suitcase open in the corner of the room and smile every time we see it.
Perhaps we need that in more than just summer.
Perhaps we all need something in our lives that feels like the suitcase under the bed.
A plan.
A hope.
A small promise that better days are coming.
Something that reminds us that joy does not only live in the moment we arrive.
Sometimes joy begins much earlier.
Sometimes it begins in the middle of an ordinary afternoon, when you pull an old suitcase from under the bed, open it wide, and let yourself believe in summer again.
GK
Georgi Kisyov – Reflections & Books 
This is beautifully penned and inspiring Georgi! It immediately made me think of how easily anticipation can fade when something takes a long time. Children can live for weeks on the promise of a trip, but adults have a way of turning even anticipation into another item on the to-do list!
There is a spiritual parallel here that goes even deeper. We are told to be “looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13). That word looking carries expectancy. Not panic. Not date-setting. Not standing on the roof with binoculars. But living with the quiet awareness that we are going somewhere, and that this world is not the final destination.
I wonder if one of the enemy’s subtler victories is simply getting us so accustomed to this life that we stop looking forward to the next one. Hebrews speaks of those who “confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth” (Hebrews 11:13). A pilgrim can enjoy the scenery, love the people beside the road, and be grateful for every good thing along the way—but he never mistakes the roadside inn for home.
There is something beautiful about recovering that holy anticipation. Not escaping life, but living it with the suitcase open, so to speak—loving well, serving faithfully, holding earthly things a little more loosely, and keeping our hearts turned toward the One who said, “I will come again, and receive you unto myself” (John 14:3).
The best part of the journey ahead is not merely where we are going.
It is Who will be there when we arrive.
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This is such a thoughtful reflection on the idea behind my post. I especially love your words about how adults can turn even anticipation into another item on the to-do list—that really says so much about how differently we experience waiting as we grow older. And I appreciate the beautiful spiritual meaning you found in the open suitcase metaphor. Thank you for taking my simple childhood memory somewhere deeper and sharing your perspective so generously.
GK
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This is so true! Getting out the suitcase from under the bed was thrilling as a child, as was opening the tin trunk in spring to get out the summer clothes! Thank you.
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Oh yes! That open suitcase really was part of the adventure before the adventure even began. 😊 And I love your memory of opening the tin trunk for the summer clothes—such a simple thing, but filled with so much excitement and anticipation.
GK
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Georgi, I enjoy your writing so much. This one brought back many memories. Thanks you!
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Thank you so much! It makes me especially happy when one of my memories brings someone else’s memories back to life too. I think that is one of the most beautiful things about sharing our stories.
GK
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Georgi, you’ve captured something we all lost somewhere. That suitcase sitting open in the corner. Not packed frantically the night before. Just… waiting. Holding everything you were about to dream into being.
Children know something we forget. They know that the best part of the trip starts weeks earlier. In the choosing. In the lying awake at night imagining. In the way a simple object, an open suitcase, can contain months of joy packed into days of waiting.
And you’re right. As adults we’ve turned it all into exhaustion. “I need a break.” As if life is something to recover from instead of something to move toward.
But you’ve left the suitcase out. You’re showing us what it means to open it again. Not just for summer trips. For the small promises. For the hope that better days are coming. For living like a pilgrim. Like someone who’s going somewhere.
Thank you for reminding us how to dream again. 💙
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Thank you so much for this beautiful reflection. I love the way you said that children know the best part of the trip starts weeks earlier—that is exactly the feeling I was trying to capture. And your words about life being something to move toward rather than something to recover from add another layer to the message. Maybe we all need to leave that imaginary suitcase open sometimes, simply to remember how good it feels to have something to dream about.
GK
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Oh Georgie, once agsin you paint an eloquent picture of childhood and the beautiful dynamic of a suitcase, once shoved away hidden unbidden until that specific moment in time when it was needed once again.
Its so true, the anticipation excitement, joy, unadulterated glee of expectation, in packing abd repackage necessities for the long awaited trip to places unknown.
It is interesting that the suitcase might have changed over the years but what it represented didn’t.
Too often as adults, we are weighted down with the dynamics and complexities of making it happen, forgetting the joy of just being.
I really loved this beautiful picture and could truly visualize that young boy eagerly awaiting the vacation ahead with happiness building positivity into an upcoming event. Delicious.
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Thank you so much for this beautiful response. I especially love your thought that the suitcase may have changed over the years, but what it represented never did—that captures the heart of this memory perfectly. And yes, perhaps adulthood sometimes makes us so focused on making things happen that we forget the simple joy of looking forward to them.
GK
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This reminds of the “Best Trip to Tuscany I Never Took”. For my fiftieth birthday, my husband and I planned a trip to Tuscany. He was so excited to visit places with me where he had gone years before with a friend. We used a paper map (this was 2011) to trace the roads between our desired destinations, keeping in mind I would be in a wheelchair. We carefully plotted and reserved our time in various locations. We would end up doing a hot air balloon ride over olive groves and land in a field where a picnic lunch would be waiting for us. Ideal!
Except we were to leave two days after the tragedies of 9/11 and suddenly all flights were canceled. Losing 3 days of an already busy 10 days just wasn’t worth waiting for. All of our friends abroad were so anxious to get home plus we had therapy clients from Manhattan who desperately needed us. Every single deposit we made was returned by the generosity of the Italians in sympathy for what America was going through. That worn out paper map held all of our excitement- the suitcase before the trip. We had had a lovely time in anticipation that helped us help others in the difficult days ahead.
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What an incredibly moving story. You may never have taken that trip to Tuscany, but the worn paper map still held a journey of its own—all the dreaming, planning, and happiness you shared together before everything changed. I’m especially touched by what you said at the end: that the joy you had already experienced through anticipation somehow became something you could carry into those difficult days and give to others. Thank you for sharing such a personal and beautiful memory with me.
GK
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“A plan. A hope. A small promise that better days are coming.
Something that reminds us that joy does not only live in the moment we arrive.”
Love this one! Yes, it goes missing the older we get!
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Thank you, Rosie! Yes, somehow we get so busy with life that we forget how wonderful it feels simply to have something to look forward to. Maybe we just need to practice that childhood excitement again from time to time.
GK
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