What I’m Leaving Behind This Fall
Old Products, Old Habits, Old Expectations and a Little More Room for Whatever Comes Next
It started with a drawer.
Which is how these things always start.
I was looking for something and instead found:
Three products I hadn’t touched in a year.
An expired sample.
A lipstick color apparently purchased by another woman living inside my body.
And several tiny jars I’ve been saving for travel as though hotel rooms don’t have skincare and civilization may collapse if I throw them away.
ALL, not very Virgo of me.
So I started cleaning.
And somewhere between the bathroom drawer and the closet, it stopped being about stuff.
I started wondering:
What else am I keeping simply because I’ve had it for a long time?
September does that to me.
First, I’m Leaving Behind Beauty Products I Don’t Actually Use
This sounds obvious.
It isn’t.
Beauty has a strange emotional economy.
We don’t want to throw away the expensive serum.
We might use the lipstick again.
The moisturizer wasn’t right, but maybe winter?
The sample is adorable.
Eventually our bathrooms become museums dedicated to purchasing decisions we refuse to acknowledge.
I’m trying something different.
If I don’t use it, don’t love it and don’t have a genuine reason to keep it, it goes.
New me.
I would rather have ten products I enjoy than fifty products creating visual guilt,
and emotional clutter.
I’m Leaving Behind Complicated for the Sake of Complicated
This applies to skincare and life.
There is a tendency to believe that if something is more complicated, it must be more effective.
Seventeen skincare steps.
A morning routine requiring thirty minutes.
A wellness protocol that needs its own spreadsheet.
No.
Cleanse well.
Treat intentionally.
Hydrate.
Protect.
Move your body.
Eat food that makes you feel good.
Sleep. Lots of sleep.
Repeat.
Simple doesn’t mean unsophisticated.
Sometimes simplicity is what experience looks like.
I’m Leaving Behind Beauty Rules That No Longer Interest Me
Shouldn’t have long hair.
Shouldn’t wear that.
Shouldn’t show this.
Shouldn’t start over.
Shouldn’t be too ambitious.
Shouldn’t care too much about beauty.
Shouldn’t care too little.
Shouldn’t mix colors.
Shouldn’t mix patters.
It’s exhausting.
We shouldn’t do the “shouldn’t”.
I want women to take care of themselves because they enjoy inhabiting their lives, their bodies.
I want women to fall in love with themselves. Inside and out.
I’m Leaving Behind the Idea That Every Relationship Has to Last Forever
This was a harder one.
We talk a lot about honoring longevity.
And I do.
But longevity alone doesn’t make something healthy.
Some friendships travel beautifully through decades.
Some belong deeply to a particular season.
Some relationships teach us.
Some change us.
Some end.
It took me 53 years to learn that letting something end doesn’t erase what it meant.
What it brought and took away.
That’s true of relationships.
Jobs.
Homes.
Businesses.
Versions of ourselves.
We can appreciate a chapter without rereading it forever.
I’m Leaving Behind the Need to Know Exactly What’s Next
This may be my biggest lesson.
I’ve spent much of my life building.
Planning.
Working.
Creating.
Fixing.
Anticipating.
Surviving.
Knowing the next step has always made me feel safe.
But some of the most meaningful changes in my life weren’t planned.
That’s the thing about kismet.
Sometimes life needs an opening.
We are so quick to fill empty space that we never find out what might have entered it.
So this fall, I’m trying to leave a empty room.
Not everything needs an immediate replacement.
What I’m Keeping
This isn’t an essay about getting rid of everything.
Quite the opposite.
Editing makes what remains more visible.
I’m keeping the skincare I genuinely use.
A good vitamin C stays.
SPF stays forever.
My gua sha ritual stays.
Walking stays.
Strength training stays.
Meditation stays.
Falling in love stays.
Curiosity stays.
People who make me laugh stay.
Work that feels meaningful stays.
And the belief that our lives can become interesting again at absolutely any age?
Definitely staying.
Creating Space Is an Act of Optimism
I used to think letting go was primarily about loss.
Now I think it can be incredibly hopeful.
Liberating. Freeing.
An empty shelf isn’t only empty.
It has capacity.
An open weekend has possibility.
A chapter ending creates a blank page.
A woman releasing an identity she’s outgrown isn’t becoming less herself.
It’s becoming an elevated version.
FULL of herself.
So I’m cleaning the drawer. Multiple ones.
I’m editing the shelf.
I’m questioning what I’ve been carrying.
And I’m leaving a little empty space on purpose.
Not because I know exactly what’s coming.
Because I don’t.
Perhaps that’s where the magic is.
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