What are you still carrying?

This past week, I did something I hadn't planned to do.

I drove to Paonia, Colorado, the small town where I grew up, and spread the remainder of my mom's ashes.

My mom passed away almost two years ago. Shortly after she died, I spread half of her ashes in the ocean near where she had been living. The other half? They sat quietly in a bag in my closet.

For two years.

There wasn't a reason. There wasn't a plan. It just wasn't time.

And then suddenly, it was.

So I got in the car, with my adventure pup, Jackson, and drove back to the town that shaped so much of my life. I visited the houses we lived in. The parks, river, and mountains where I played. The streets that once felt so big and now seemed so small.

What struck me most was how little had changed.

Fifty years later, much of it looks the same.

And yet, everything is different.

As I stood there, I realized this trip wasn't really about the ashes.

It was about completion.

There was something unfinished that had been quietly taking up space in my heart. Not every day. Not loudly. But enough.

Enough that when I finally released those ashes,

I felt light.

Free.

At peace.

It made me wonder...

How many of us are carrying things we know we need to address?

A conversation we need to have.

A decision we've been postponing.

A dream we've put on the shelf.

A grief we haven't fully honored.

A relationship we've outgrown.

A box in the closet, literal or metaphorical, that we've been walking past for months or years.

Not because we're lazy.

Not because we're broken.

But because sometimes we're not ready.

Until we are.

The challenge is that unfinished things require energy. They quietly pull at us. They occupy space. They create a weight we don't always notice because we've become accustomed to carrying it.

And often, the very thing we want most, a new beginning, a fresh chapter, more joy, more freedom, more possibility, is waiting on the other side of completing what we've left unfinished.

So today, I have a question for you:

What are you still carrying?

What is the thing you've been avoiding, postponing, or telling yourself you'll deal with someday?

And what might become possible if you finally gave yourself permission to complete it?

You don't have to solve everything today.

Just notice.

Because sometimes the next chapter isn't about doing more.

Sometimes it's about finally letting go of what you've already carried long enough.

With Love.

Jessica