I've lived with my parents my whole life.
A few months ago I moved back home after living alone, on my own, for the first time. I walked back into my old room — and it hit me. I didn't recognize whoever lived in this room. An impossible amount of stuff that no longer had anything to do with who I am today.
Some of it was easy to let go of. Clothes, random objects — into a bag, into the trash. But there was another layer, deeper, of things I couldn't throw away that easily. A gift from an old friend. A sweet memory stuck inside a small object. Nostalgic CDs and letters from childhood. The sweatshirt my favorite aunt gave me for my birthday. These things didn't just take up space in a closet — they took up space in my heart, and throwing them away felt like betraying the moment they represented.
Then I got to the documents. Some were easy — bank paperwork, old forms, nothing to feel about. But then I found my draft letter, my high school diploma, and old notebooks full of handwriting that had changed so much over the years. Small things that shaped who I am today. How do you throw away an identity archive like that? And what if I want to revisit those moments again someday?
And as someone who draws letters in a notebook every day, I found a mountain of typography pieces and sketches — things I wanted to digitize someday, maybe fold into my font course, maybe write about, maybe give a second, digital life to down the road.
It was a heavy emotional weight. I went for a walk with my sister and told her what I was struggling with. She said her way of saying goodbye to things was to photograph them. I thought it was a good idea — so that's what I did. I photographed, and photographed, and photographed — said a proper goodbye, and threw things out.
It worked well, but I couldn't shake the thought that my camera roll was filling up with random, unsorted photos. The thought bothered me, but I didn't have a solution.
I kept photographing, until I hit clusters of photos I wanted to keep together, not scattered — like a creative process split across several separate pages, each one photographed on its own, with no way to stitch the story back together. That's when it really hit me. I needed a way to organize this now, or in a few hours I'd have a mess that would stick with me forever.
So I stopped taking photos, and dove into the night to solve the problem myself — and that's how Goodbye Stuff was born. A small place to say a beautiful goodbye, so the object itself can move on, without the memory going with it.
If you also feel the weight of how much stuff you own, and you'd like to say goodbye to it while keeping the memory, you're welcome to try it.
I hope this app lets you part with your things and frees up space in your home — without giving up the space they hold in your heart.