A partial, ongoing, deeply liberating list.

Letting go.

I am not sure when it happened exactly. Somewhere between therapy and turning 30-something and just accumulating enough life experience to know better - I started putting things down. Not dramatically. Not all at once. Just gradually, quietly, one guilty feeling at a time.

Here is where I am so far.

What other people think of me.

I want to be clear: I never spent a tremendous amount of energy on this. But whatever residual caring I had left has mostly evaporated at this point, and I do not miss it. There is something that happens as you get older where other people’s opinions of your choices just stop having the same weight. You realize that most people are too busy worrying about their own lives to spend much time judging yours. And the ones who are spending time judging yours - well, that tells you something about them, not you.

I am who I am. I make the choices I make. I am genuinely at peace with that.

Taking on other people’s problems as my own.

This one took therapy to crack and I am not embarrassed to say so.

I am someone who cares deeply about the people in my life. For a long time, that caring came with a compulsion to fix things - to absorb whatever someone else was going through and make it my job to resolve it. My therapist said something that stopped me cold: this is not your problem to fix.

That sentence changed something in me. I can love people fully and show up for them completely without taking ownership of their pain. I can hold space without holding the weight. The distinction sounds small. It is not small at all.

Scheduling things for myself.

I have a full social calendar. I also show up for my kids. These two things are not in conflict and it took me longer than it should have to fully believe that.

I am a better mother and a better partner when I am also a full person. That means friendships and plans and things that are just for me. It also means being honest about capacity - my husband needs his time too, and we need time together, and all of that has to fit. But the guilt I used to feel about booking something for myself, about having a life outside of the house? Gone. Choosing yourself within reason is not selfish. It is just maintenance.

How I choose to unwind.

I have mostly stopped drinking. The hangovers stopped being worth it - not even bad ones, just the low-grade drag of the next day that made me wonder why I had bothered. So I stopped, for the most part, and switched to CBD and low-dose THC instead.

I know that is not everyone’s comfort zone and I genuinely do not care. What I can tell you is that it has made me more relaxed, more present, and significantly less likely to feel terrible on a Sunday morning. If someone has opinions about that, they are welcome to them. I am over here feeling good and minding my business.

Doing things for friends without keeping score.

Somewhere along the way I let go of the idea that friendship is reciprocal in a transactional sense. Banking favors is not friendship. Showing up for someone because they need you - not because you expect something back - is friendship.

I have gotten clearer about who my people actually are. The ones who would come through in a pinch. The ones I would do anything for not because I owe them but because that is just how I feel about them. That clarity has made everything simpler. I show up for the people who matter. I stopped expending energy waiting to be repaid by people who were never going to.

It sounds a little ruthless written out. In practice it just feels like peace.

The state of my house.

The laundry might not be done. The playroom is probably not tidy. There are paper plates in my cabinet right now and I bought them on purpose and I feel great about it.

I pick my battles. A perfectly kept house is not one of the battles I am currently picking. My kids are fed and loved and having a good Summer and if the throw pillows are on the floor, then the throw pillows are on the floor. Nobody is suffering because of it.

The version of me that used to stress about this felt like she was performing tidiness for an audience that did not exist. I stepped off that stage and I have not looked back.

The list keeps growing. I suspect it will keep growing for the rest of my life, which I think is the point. Every year there is something else I was carrying that I did not need to carry. Every year I get a little better at putting it down.

If you are reading this and holding something you do not need to hold - I hope you put it down too. It is lighter on the other side.