Those white shoes your parents told you to keep off the grass, the khakis they wanted you to keep clean on Easter. The car they didn’t let you eat in, the walls they told you not to mess up with your posters.

Where is all that now? The shoes are long since thrown away, the pants outgrown, handed down and then finally tossed by someone. The walls have been repainted many times over. Even the car, by this point, is probably a squashed metal cube in a junkyard–and if it isn’t, the person driving it has long since given up trying to make sure it’s ‘nice.’

Sure, the stuff was expensive. Sure, it’s good to take care of things. But in retrospect, isn’t it a little sad? The arguments, the pressure, the prioritization–all of it over stuff that’s gone now. That was always ephemeral. That never really mattered. Even the money those items cost, all these years later, seems small.

And the same will be true with your stuff, the stuff you’re arguing with your kids about, the stuff you’re stressing about, the living room you’re kicking yourself for not being as clean as the ones you see on social media. None of it really matters. None of it really lasts. It will all end up as garbage soon enough.

What does last then? The people. The memories. The associations. So relax. Let go. Enjoy it. Let them be a little messy. Let them mess up. Give yourself the same freedom.