In that stillness, something shifted. I sat in my nearly empty 600 square feet and realized my stuff were just that: stuff. They had nothing to do with who I was. It took me about two months to fully accept that, but once I did, everything started falling into place. I decided to drive back to Las Vegas and get my things. Not all of them. Not most of them, actually. Just what I really needed. I consigned most of my furniture, rented a smaller truck, and asked a friend if she’d help me drive. Accepting that help wasn’t easy for me, but I was grateful she said yes.
For most of my life, I’d believed that my home reflected who I was. The furniture I chose, the art on the walls, the way I arranged each room. These things felt like extensions of my identity. I thought if I lost them, I’d lose myself.
But sitting in that bare apartment, I discovered something unexpected. I was still me. Without the stuff. Without the 2,000 square feet. Without the office I thought I needed. I was still completely, wholly me.
That realization changed everything.
When my friend and I drove to Las Vegas, I walked into that storage unit with different eyes. I saw beautiful furniture that had served me well. I saw items I’d loved. But I also saw clearly what I actually needed versus what I’d been holding onto out of habit or fear.
I consigned most of it. The large pieces that had filled those bigger homes, the extra furniture I’d accumulated over the years, the things I’d kept because I thought I should. I kept what fit my new life, what served me now, not who I used to be.
The drive back to Vancouver was different from the drive out. On the way to Portland months earlier, I’d been running from something, desperate and scared. On the way back, I was choosing something. I was choosing a smaller life that might actually be bigger in the ways that mattered.
My friend’s presence on that drive meant more than she probably knew. I’ve always been independent, sometimes to a fault. Asking for help felt like admitting I couldn’t handle things on my own. But she showed up without judgment, without questions about why I was doing this or whether I was making a mistake. She just helped me drive.
When we arrived back in Vancouver and started unloading, I felt the anxiety creep back in. The stuff I’d kept, the things I’d decided I needed, now had to fit into 600 square feet. I looked at the boxes and furniture and wondered if I’d made another miscalculation. Maybe I’d kept too much. Maybe this still wouldn’t work.
I stood in the middle of my small apartment, surrounded by boxes, and felt overwhelmed all over again. I’d done the hard work of letting go in Las Vegas, but now I had to figure out how to actually live with what remained. The space felt crowded. I didn’t know where anything should go. I couldn’t visualize how it would all fit together.
I’d gone through the emotional work of releasing my attachment to stuff, but I hadn’t yet learned how to live intentionally in a small space. Those are two different skills, and I only had one of them.
That’s when I knew I needed help again. Not with the letting go this time, but with the living.
**What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever let go of? Not just physically, but emotionally? And what did you discover about yourself when you did?**
