How to Pack Your Heart into One Suitcase

Claudine Cho
Jul 23, 2017 · 4 min read

If you’re reading this, I’ll assume you’re someplace in your journey where you would like to pack up a suitcase and go — somewhere, anywhere, wherever. Even if you’ve spent months dreaming and planning, it won’t feel real until you have a physical ticket. If you are able to and it feels like your time, take the plunge and grab your one-way. Let it be your push to leave.

Packing Party

  1. Invite your closest friends over for a packing/farewell party. Entice them with the leftover liquor you’ll need to discard anyways.
  2. Make SUPER DIY jungle juice: orange juice, near-empty bottles of alcohol, and your choice of fresh fruits (kiwi, orange, pineapple, strawberry — all good). Honestly, the fruits are just there to buffer the bad taste.
  3. Rummage through your closet and choose, as my mom says, “Only the clothes that make your heart flutter.” Toss them into the YES pile. You can fold them later when you need something mindless to do to distract you from your nervousness about leaving. A good rule — if you haven’t worn a piece of clothing in the past year, sell it or take it to a donation center.
  4. Allow yourself one wildcard piece of clothing, like the sheer top you bought as part of your “sexy Charlotte’s Web” costume for Halloween seven years ago.
  5. Add cities to your World Clock so that you can easily check in with friends in different timezones. I’ve found that setting “good-to-call” hours (i.e. 7–10pm EST on weekdays) with friends and calling them spontaneously via Facetime within those hours works best.
  6. At some point, allow yourself to unfold. Tell your friends how your heart is doing so that they know how to support you.

In a year’s time, you’ll plan one of these packing parties again, surrounded by people who love you. In a year’s time, you’ll have fallen in love with people you don’t even know exist yet. So in the meantime, take it all in. If you’re searching for growth, know that in packing your heart, you’re already well on your way.

My Actual List for a Year Away:

Things you wear on your body

  1. 4 pairs of jeans
  2. 2 sets of pajamas
  3. 4 sets of workout clothes
  4. 2 sets of sweatshirts/sweatpants
  5. 10 blouses
  6. 1 pair of heels, rain boots for the summer typhoon season in Seoul, sneakers, walking shoes
  7. 2 evening dresses
  8. 1 denim jacket
  9. 1 black coat
  10. 1 set of professional wear

Things you wear ON your body

  1. Nipple pasties
  2. 2 weeks worth of underwear/socks (the more you bring the better, because you don’t know how much laundry costs or your access to washers)
  3. Face stuff, toiletries (because your essentials may not be available where you’re going)
  4. 1 cycle worth of feminine products

Things that are wholly unnecessary but make my heart flutter

  1. Jewelry collection (like the embossed “heartbreak” ring my sister made me when I launched my podcast #goingtowardsheartbreak)
  2. Leather thigh-high boots

Heart essentials

  1. If You Feel Too Much by Jamie Tworkowski, The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton, Love and Other Ways of Dying by Michael Paterniti, The Bible
  2. Journal/Sketchbook
  3. Heart-rate monitor (to track the moments that break my heart)
  4. Playlist filled with happy and mellow hip-hop
  5. Candles to remember home
  6. A letter from my best friend
  7. A letter from myself to myself for when I need comforting

An excerpt from the letter to myself, written somewhere above the Pacific on Asiana Airlines Flight 203:
You can do this. You’re already doing it. You may be feeling lost now, but remember the moment you bought your one-way ticket. Remember how your heart leapt out of your chest. Remember how YOU and how right that felt. These feelings are written on your heart; they will always be there. So turn inwards and remind yourself why even dreaming of Here left you feeling full. You created a life for yourself in Boston, you can do it again in Seoul. I promise, if you can will yourself to leave what you know, you can will yourself to begin again.

Go feel things! Allow yourself the freedom to live.

Gyeongui-Line Book Street (exit 6 Hongik University), Seoul. This particular train-shaped cabin (1/14) is filled with travel stories. The prompt for the post-its: Where will you travel to next?

For more writing like this, please see our new publication Advo, a field guide to adulting. 🥑

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advo

Well-researched, unpretentious advice and opinions on adulting (i.e. all the life stuff our parents didn’t know to teach us)

Thanks to Grace H. Lin and Brian Truong

Claudine Cho

Written by

currently #goingtowardsheartbreak in Seoul www.goingtowardsheartbreak.com

advo

advo

Well-researched, unpretentious advice and opinions on adulting (i.e. all the life stuff our parents didn’t know to teach us)

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