What did you carry that you didn't need?
Not gear. The other weight.
The need to be productive
A marriage that ended three years ago
The belief that I had to earn rest
My father's expectations
The idea that grief has a timeline
A career I built for someone else's approval
The habit of checking my phone every six minutes
The version of myself I perform at family dinners
Guilt for being the one who left
The plan I made at twenty-two
A friendship I keep resuscitating
The weight of being the strong one
An apology I never received
The belief that rest is laziness
My mother's silence
The need to have an opinion about everything
A body I was taught to distrust
The story that I'm behind
Someone else's definition of success
The fear of being ordinary
A conversation I rehearse every night
The idea that vulnerability is weakness
Productivity as a personality
The need to be needed
A home I can never go back to
The belief that love has to be earned
My inbox
The assumption that busy means important
A promise I made when I was too young to understand it
The habit of saying yes when I mean no
The feeling that I should be further along
An identity I outgrew but never put down
The compulsion to fix everyone around me
A secret I keep from the people closest to me
The weight of being someone's reason to stay
What are you carrying?
Thank you for letting it go.