One summer day that year, I slung on a small backpack and carried a 22-inch suitcase in hand — that was everything I owned. I pulled the door shut gently, walked out of my rented room, and headed for a foreign land, as casually as if I were simply switching subway lines. Except there was no return trip.

Back then I had nothing, and that meant I was weightless: a train ticket, a few white T-shirts, a pair of canvas sneakers were enough to make me believe I could leave at any moment — and arrive at any moment. I thought this lightness would stay with me for life.

Ten years have passed, and stuff has crept into my home like a slowly rising tide: dozens of white T-shirts with every pattern imaginable piled in the closet, like a stack of clouds bleached by the sun; more than a dozen pairs of shoes, nearly identical in style, differing only in wear and tear, lined up like a trail of shallow footprints; the ordinary coffee machine hums now and then before going back to gathering dust; the "ocean-view" case with the 4090 and the 30-inch flat monitor glow with RGB light at night. None of it is expensive, yet it stacks up, layer upon layer, like gentle but stubborn sedimentary rock pinning me in place.

On sleepless nights, I run the same thought experiment:

"If I had to leave tomorrow, could I still walk away with just one suitcase, like I did back then?"

In the past, I answered without hesitation — "Of course I could."

Later, I fell silent — "Probably... no."

Now, I hear the tremor in my own voice, yet I stubbornly add one more line — "But I hope I can."

Yes, I doubt, I fear, I've lost faith in myself; and yet at the same time, I know clearly:

Doubts are doubts; freedom is still freedom.

It was never "can I or can't I," but "am I willing to keep acknowledging that I have the freedom to leave."

Freedom was never taken away from me — it was only gathering dust.

So I keep practicing:

I no longer force myself into "decluttering," nor do I count my possessions. Instead, I give them a new name —

" dispensable."

A T-shirt is still a T-shirt, a shoe is still a shoe, the coffee machine remains silent, but each of them now carries an invisible tag:

"I own you, and I could just as well not own you."

This tag isn't written on paper; it's written into every breath:

When I reach for a T-shirt with a faded print, a thought flashes by — "it would be just fine not to take you tomorrow";

When I pass the canvas sneakers with worn-down heels, I remember the streets they once walked, and whisper — "thank you, but the story can end here";

When I notice the dust on the coffee machine, I smile — "you're just a machine, not my homesickness."

Nothing has been discarded; the room is still crowded. But inside me, these things have lost their weight.

I no longer fight abundance with "minimalism"; I loosen my attachment with "I can live without it."

The doubt is still there, but it grows lighter and lighter;

Freedom remains — only it has shifted from "of course" back then to "I choose to believe in it again" today.

How does this way of living make me feel?

Like exhaling the last grain of dust from my alveoli.

Every morning, seeing that row of T-shirts like an unsealed palette, I smile — they're just clothes now, no longer labels of my identity; the dozen pairs of shoes sit like a flock of sleeping birds, free to fly or stay; the dust-covered coffee machine even looks a little cute, reminding me that "using it once in a while" doesn't mean "must own it forever."

Uncertainty drifts through like a very light wind, blowing words like "must" and "should" off the windowsill. What remains is a suitcase that can always be zipped shut, a door that can always be closed, and a strange kind of groundedness: it turns out the real weight was never the objects, but the notion that they were "irreplaceable." Once I peel away that layer of thought, the things are still there — but like satellites that have lost their gravity, they orbit around me gently, no longer nailing me to the spot.

If one day I hoist that 22-inch suitcase onto my back again, it won't be because I've finally conquered my desire for things, nor because I've grown tired of this life — but because, after rounds of doubt and reaffirmation, I am still willing to admit:

I am still free.

What goes into the suitcase remains uncertain; but I know that even with empty hands, I can carry my whole self back home.