I Walked Past a Basket of Towels for Three Months.

For three months, I walked past towels I never needed. When I finally folded them, I caught myself performing for an audience that doesn't exist. My mother's dead. The neighbor's not coming. So who th

The Towels I Didn’t Miss

For three months, I walked past a chair holding a basket of clean towels.

Let’s clock that. THREE. MONTHS.

See what I did there? I broke the rule—the rule that says a good woman (nay, a good person) is disciplined. They tend to the household chores. They don’t get behind. They don’t push them aside in favor of more desirable activities like, I don’t know, living their life.

The problem with that rule? It wasn’t created with a woman like me in mind.

And yet. I still bristled.

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So finally, I walked over to the laundry basket, grabbed the towels, and began folding.

They sat there—quietly, obediently—waiting for me to do what a good woman does. Fold. Tend. Put things away.

Three months. Not once did I need them. Not once did I miss them.

Which means I already had enough.

And yet I kept them there. Like a ghost chore I refused to look at too closely.

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As I smoothed them out, I caught myself doing the thing—lining up the rounded edges, folding precisely the way my mother taught me, picturing the tidy little stack inside the linen closet.

Pretty. Presentable. Proper.

And then I jumped up, ruffled the whole damn pile, and said out loud:

“Who the hell cares if the towels behind the closet door are tidy?”

Seriously. Who? Cares?

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Here’s the part that really hit me:

I wasn’t folding those towels for me.

I was folding them for some invisible voice that still wants me to be impressive. To be tidy. To be seen as good.

The whole ritual was a performance for an audience that doesn’t exist.

My mother? Dead.

A neighbor? Not coming over.

A Better Homes & Gardens inspector? Pretty sure they’re not making house calls.

But I do know this: I don’t live for that anymore.

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That moment—standing over a pile of unmissed towels—showed me how much of what I still do is tied to a version of myself I no longer am.

It showed me how we confuse order with worth.

How we inherit expectations and turn them into invisible job descriptions.

And maybe, just maybe, this is why we have so much stuff. Because it lets us do the dance of goodness, even when the music has long stopped playing.

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I care about having a clean towel when I need it.

I do not care if the edges line up in the dark behind a door no one opens.

So let me ask you:

What are you still folding neatly out of habit or inheritance, even though your soul has already outgrown the need?

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As we head into these next few days—for some, it’s chaos and casseroles; for others, it’s silence and loneliness; and for a few lucky ones, it’s joy that feels real and earned—let’s take one breath before we participate.

Let’s ask:

Am I doing this from soul or from script?

Is this a rhythm I’ve chosen, or a ritual I inherited and forgot to question?

Not everything passed down deserves to be kept.

Some traditions are just old to-do lists in disguise.

And maybe, just maybe, this year we can let one of them go.

Gently. Fully.

With a whispered “thank you” and a louder “goodbye.”

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And if you’re craving space for that kind of deeper listening—

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You are not done yet. You are just beginning.

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