The Small Things that Held You

Image by @hazardos from Unsplash

Have you ever done a little spring clean of your wallet or bag, only to find it stuffed with receipts you never needed, food wrappers you forgot about, and loose coins that had slipped into every corner? The moment you cleared it all out, you noticed how much lighter everything felt — not just the bag, but somehow, you.

We carry more than we realise.

The big things are easy enough to spot. A difficult relationship. A season of life that did not go the way you hoped. A loss that still has a name. Those are the rocks. You can see them, name them, and when you are ready, set them down.

But it is the fine grains that slip in deepest.

A remark someone made that you brushed off at the time. A misunderstanding that left you sitting in an unfavourable light. A label that was never yours to carry, but somehow found its way into your pockets anyway. These things settle quietly. And because they are small, we tell ourselves they do not count. But count them long enough, and they become the weight you cannot explain.

For me, one of those grains was my own reflection.

I have written before about growing up with NF1 — Neurofibromatosis type 1. The café-au-lait spots on my skin. And then there was the height. I was at least a head taller than every peer around me, which, as a child, felt less like a gift and more like a reason to be set apart. I was called a monster. Classmates kept their distance, genuinely afraid they might catch something from me simply by touch.

Nobody talked about NF then. Nobody explained it. And so children filled the silence with fear, and I carried the weight of that fear as though it were somehow mine to own.

Underneath it all, I wanted to feel normal. Accepted. Unremarkable, even, in the very best way. I learned early to hold my head up and mask the hurt. But the truth was that my self-esteem had taken root in very shallow soil, and I did not yet know how to tend it.

What shifted was not a single revelation. It was grace in the form of one friend, in one ordinary moment.

She stood up for me. She proved, simply and without ceremony, that I was not something to be afraid of. That touch was just touch. That I was just a person. To her, it may have been nothing. To me, it was the beginning of believing that I was allowed to take up space.

I am still grateful for her.

This week, I want to invite you to do your own quiet spring clean. Not of your bag this time, but of what you have been quietly carrying. It does not have to be a dramatic excavation. Just a moment of honest noticing.

What fine grain has slipped in so deep that you have stopped questioning whether it belongs?

You may find, once you hold it up to the light, that it was never yours to begin with.

If something in this piece stayed with you, I would love to hear what it stirred. Leave a comment, or send me a message. And if you know someone who might need to read this today, quietly pass it on. Sometimes the most generous thing we can do is simply say: you are not the only one.