Buried in the Bag

Wanted to forget about my problems, so I shoved them in a bag. Out of sight, out of mind — right? The thing about bags is... they get heavy.

I think I’ve been neglecting myself for too long.

Putting things above myself only hurts me in the long run.

We all avoid the hard things — but what happens when the hard thing is you? The knowing you should take a weekend off, or focus on your goals instead of following society’s rhythm?

That’s what I’ve been doing for years: shoving problems away and hoping they’ll disappear.

Naïve, right?

They don’t vanish — they ferment.

They snowball until they’re unavoidable. Then one day, everything you’ve buried comes to light, and you’re left sitting in the dark.

I use work as my favorite hiding place.

If I stay busy, maybe I won’t have to feel.

But that’s the trap — the more I do, the less I process. Like when you get a text you know will twist your stomach, or a letter in the mail you’d rather not open. So you stuff it in a bag — metaphorically, or in my case, literally — and pretend it’s gone.

But the bag gets heavy.

Every unspoken word, every avoided emotion, every lie you tell yourself — they all add weight. You keep walking, thinking you’re fine, until one day you realize the straps are digging into your shoulders.

I’ve been trying to get better at unpacking it. Facing things as they come instead of “kicking the can down the road.” The truth is, I can only be mad at myself for carrying what I refuse to drop.

Being a people-pleaser doesn’t help either. It’s still hard sometimes, you know?

The wanting to fit in while chasing dreams that only live in your head. You get laughed at — sometimes for dreaming, sometimes for failing. But either way, you learn that the noise of others fades once you start listening to your own voice.

I was listening to a podcast today — a habit I’d fallen out of — and one line stuck with me:

That hit hard. Especially as someone who’s both my harshest critic and my biggest believer. It’s a strange tension — holding yourself to an impossible standard while also trying to show yourself grace. You know you can be better, because you’ve seen better glimpses of yourself before.

Sometimes I wonder, what if I actually lived up to the version of me I keep imagining?

The answer is probably better than I can fathom.

But it starts small — the quiet nights in, the gym sessions, the focus on learning, the tiny choices that stack. The habits that shape the person holding the bag.

Funny enough, I once won a company superlative: “Most Likely to Have an Existential Crisis.”

That shit fit me too well. A bartender once told me, “If you’re having a lot of crises, it’s probably for a reason.” She was right. Every crisis is a checkpoint — a sign that something inside you wants to grow.

And maybe that’s what the “bag” really is.

Not just the money, or the grind, or the goals — but the weight and wisdom you collect along the way. The paycheck, the recognition, the wins — they’re just reflections of what you’ve learned to carry, what you’ve chosen to unpack, and what you’ve had the courage to leave behind.

Maybe the goal isn’t to drop the bag.

Maybe it’s to finally open it — and see what’s been sitting inside this whole time.