Put the Bags Down

On hair loss, shame and the heaviest things we were never supposed to carry.

Picture this: I’m power-walking through the airport. You know the walk, the one that says I have a plan and I am on a schedule. Except I’m also dragging a roller bag with a broken wheel, a tote that keeps slipping off my shoulder, a personal item that has somehow inflated to a non-personal size, and a duty-free bag from a trip I took 6 months ago. There’s a coffee in my hand, and there’s sweat in places sweat shouldn’t be.

I haven’t even made it to security.

This is how a lot of us walk through life.

The Bags We Don’t Remember Packing

Here’s the thing about emotional baggage, nobody hands it to you at a counter and asks if you’d like to check it. You just sort of accumulate it. A little shame here. A little embarrassment there. A comment someone made in 2009 that you’re still mentally responding to in the shower. The version of yourself you thought you’d be by now. The version of yourself you used to be.

And for so many of us, especially women, those bags get heavy fast. We don’t think to put them down because somewhere along the way we got the message that carrying it all is just what we do. We’re “strong.” We’re “handling it.” We’re “fine.”

We’re also exhausted.

Remember When You Traveled Light?

Think back. When you were younger, you didn’t even have a real carry-on. You had a duffle bag, maybe a backpack. You threw it over you shoulder, hopped on the plane, hopped off and kept going. You were nimble. You were quick. You could sprint to your gate sipping a Diet Coke and eating a soft pretzel and still make it with time to spare.

And then without even realizing it, the bags started showing up. You didn’t ask for them. You didn’t pack them. But suddenly you're hauling a matching set of luggage you don’t remember buying, and it’s taking you longer and longer to get anywhere. The walk to the gate that used to take five minutes now takes 30. You’re stopping every few feet to readjust. You’re irritated, you’re sweating through your shirt and you’ve spilled your coffee.

And then, you finally get to the gate.

And the agent looks at your tower of luggage and says: “Ma’am, you have way too many bags. You cannot get on this plane.”

You panic. Can I check them? you ask.

They look at you and say, “No. No, no, no. Those are yours. Nobody else is taking those for you. You’re staying right here.”

That’s the moment, I think, where the real heaviness sets in. Not the weight of the bags themselves, but the realization that you’re not going anywhere as long as you’re holding them. You’re stuck at the gate, watching other planes take off, wondering why everyone else seems to be moving forward while you can’t even check your boarding pass.

The hardest, most freeing truth I ever learned is this: Nobody is coming to take the bags from you. Not your partner. Not your therapist. Not your best friend. Not the perfect product, the perfect plan, the perfect timeline. They can cheer you on, but they cannot carry it for you , and they cannot check it for you.

You have to put it down yourself.

When Hair Loss Becomes One of Those Bags

Losing my hair was one of the heaviest suitcases I’ve ever carried. It didn’t just sit there politely either. The zipper broke and the contents spilled out everywhere: self-consciousness, grief for the version of me I used to see in the mirror, the exhausting performance of pretending it wasn’t a big deal when it was in fact a very big deal, the avoidance of windy days, group photos, getting caught in the rain like I was the Wicked Witch of the West.

Shame is sneaky like that. It convinces you that the most reasonable response to losing something is to also lose your sense of self, your confidence and your ability to enjoy a simple breeze.

Spoiler alert: it is not, in fact, reasonable.

The Great Unpacking

At some point and I’m not exactly sure when, I started setting bags down. Not all at once, I’m not a saint, I’m a woman with a Substack. But one at a time.

The shame bag? Incredibility heavy. Set it down.

The “I should be over this by now” bag? Surprisingly portable but full of bricks. Set it down.

The “what will people think” bag? That one had a TSA lock on it and I still don’t know who packed it. Set it down anyway.

Here’s what nobody warns you about when you start putting the bags down: at first, you feel weirdly light, like you forgot something important. Your shoulders don’t know what to do with themselves. You keep patting your pockets like “Wait, where’s my crippling self-doubt? I just had it.”

But then, and this is the wild part, you realize you can actually move. You can breathe. You can look around. You can notice things you couldn’t see before because your view was blocked by a tower of luggage held together by sheer will and a single bungee cord. You can finally hear them calling your boarding group.

Not Everyone Will Clap When You Set Them Down

Here’s something I didn’t take into account as I started littering the terminal with my baggage: when you start putting the bags down, some people are going to get really uncomfortable.

Not strangers. Your people. The ones standing next to you in the terminal, watching.

Because some people were comfortable with you carrying all of that. Your struggle made theirs feel justified. Your smallness made them feel bigger. Your hiding made them feel safer. As long as you were sweating under a tower of luggage, they didn’t have to look at their own pile in the corner.

So when you start setting bags down? When you start walking lighter, standing taller, taking up more space? Some of them are going to try to hand the bags right back to you. They’ll do it with a smile. They’ll say things like “I’m just worried about you,” or “You seem different lately.” They’ll find a hundred kind sounding ways to ask you to please, please pick that bag back up.

Hear this loud and clear: You do not have to.

You can love those people and still keep walking. You can understand where their discomfort is coming from and still refuse to carry weight that was never yours. The people who truly love you will eventually catch up. They’ll set down some of their own bags too. That’s how this works, one person putting hers down gives the next woman permission to do the same.

And the ones who don’t catch up? That’s information. Painful information. But information.

You’re allowed to keep walking anyway.

What You Actually Need Is Smaller Than You Think

Here’s the wildest discovery on the other side of that unpacking, you really don’t need that much to feel like yourself again,

For me, it came down to a short list. Doing the inner work, the unglamorous, unsexy, no-one-claps-for-you work of actually sitting with my feelings instead of outrunning them in the airport of life. Finding the practical things that helped me feel like me in the mirror again, whether that’s a wig that makes me feel unstoppable, a topper that gives me back the version of my reflection I missed, or just a good hat day. Surrounding myself with people who don’t require a performance.

That’s pretty much it. The carry-on.

Turns out you can build an entire life, a good one, a light one, out of a few things that genuinely matter. Everything else was just stuff you been hauling because no one told you that you were allowed to put it down.

Consider This Your Permission Slip

So here it is in writing: you are allowed to put the bags down.

You’re allowed to stop carrying shame about something that was never your fault. You’re allowed to find a solution that makes you feel like yourself again without apologizing for needing it. You’re allowed to do the inner work and the outer work, they’re not in competition, they’re teammates. You’re allowed to feel light again. You’re allowed to disappoint the people who needed you small.

And if you’re standing in the middle of the metaphorical terminal right now, sweating with a tower of bags threatening to topple, can I gently suggest: start with one. Just one. Set it down and see how it feels.

Because here’s the thing, the plane is still boarding, Your life is still calling your name. You have places to go, people to meet, memories to make, big things to do, and you can’t get where you want to go carrying all of that.

But the good news is that you don’t have to.

If this resonated with you hit reply and tell me which bag you’re setting down first. I read every one and I promise, you’re not carrying it alone.

Travel light my friend.

Between Us,

Jess