Tearing it all down

A Love Letter to the Life I Let Go

In 2008, I began the dismantling of my life as if my survival depended on it—because in many ways, it did. I was suffocating in a marriage, buried under the weight of what I had been taught defined success with the big house, the fancy car, the vacations and the overflowing closet.

On the outside, it looked like I had it all. But inside, I was disappearing.

I didn’t have the language back then about minimalism as it wasn’t a buzzword yet, but I intuitively knew that I needed to let go. I felt the need to shed the life I had built.

I began purging. Not just my home, but the illusions I had clung to. I let go of the things I thought would bring happiness as if they were just props in a performance. Worse yet, I had used them as proof of my worth, hoping others would see me and think, “She’s made it.”

But it was never really me. And I was tired of pretending.

That same year, the housing market crashed and I lost all the equity in my home. What could have felt like another layer of loss, strangely felt like confirmation. The foundations I had built my life upon were crumbling both externally and internally.

But instead of resisting, I let them fall.

People thought I had lost my mind. “So, you’re like a nomad now?” they'd ask with a mix of confusion and judgment. At the time, I felt shame in that label. I questioned myself daily. Was I reckless? Naive? Would I regret walking away from what so many people spent their lives trying to hold on to?

But something in me that felt old, wise, and quietly persistent urged me to keep going.

That shedding would lead to becoming. And it did.

Leaving home ownership and the expectations wrapped around it allowed me to be fluid. To begin seeing myself as a global citizen instead of someone bound to a blueprint that was never mine to begin with.

I stopped trying to fit in, and in doing so, I finally started to feel.

And the most beautiful part? That shame I once felt began to shift.

Over time, the energy changed. People began reaching out not to question me, but to ask for guidance. Encouragement. They saw something in my path they wanted for themselves.

Freedom. Authenticity. Permission.

Of course, the questions still come, especially on the hard days when I feel unmoored or unsure.

But so do the lifelines.

Just last week, I received a package from Australia, from Jenny, a woman I met during my time there. Inside was a bag with patches that made her think of me: “Not all who wander are lost.” “When you fit in, you disappear.” Alongside it was a card that read, “Thank you for sharing your journey and your thoughts on living your life.”

It arrived on one of those days—the kind where I was quietly questioning everything again.

But life is like that.

It tests, and then it offers grace. Little signs, little whispers reminding us we’re not alone. That we’re seen. That we matter. And that sharing our truth, however messy or uncertain, might be the exact medicine someone else needs to hear.

So if you’re in the process of tearing it all down or even just feeling the nudge. Please know that you are not alone!

There is life on the other side of letting go.

There is joy in unbecoming what you never really were.

And sometimes, what looks like wandering is actually the path home to yourself.