You know what the heaviest thing in the world is?
It isn’t concrete. It isn’t steel.
It’s stuff.
I spent twenty years collecting the trophies. The big house in Bend. The nice furniture. The watches. The suits. The goddamn matching silverware. I built a monument to my own success, brick by brick, receipt by receipt.
And last week, I looked at it all, and I realized: It’s just landfill waiting to happen.
So I started the purge.
I took the $500 watch—the one I bought to impress people I don’t even like—and I put it in the “Sell” pile. I took the nice leather chair—the one where I sat and drank my Pendleton and brooded about my life—and I put it in the “Donate” pile. I took the clothes, the shoes, the ties, the costumes of the “Senior Project Manager,” and I shoved them into black plastic bags.
I drove to Goodwill. I opened the trunk. And I started throwing my life away.
People talk about “letting go” like it’s a spiritual concept. Bullshit. Letting go is physical. It’s the sound of a heavy bag hitting the bottom of a donation bin. Thud. That’s the sound of freedom.
I stood there in the parking lot, looking at the empty trunk. And I felt… lighter. Physically lighter.
Every object I owned was a tether. A responsibility. A thing I had to clean, move, insure, or worry about. Now? They’re gone. Someone else can worry about dusting the goddamn knick-knacks.
I went back to my apartment. It’s empty now. Just the essentials. A bed. A laptop. A coffee maker. And my one bag.
It echoes in here. And you know what? It sounds like music.
I threw twenty years of the American Dream into a dumpster, and I didn’t even look back.
Because you can’t fly if you’re carrying a sofa.
