From Pizza Boxes to Purpose: How I Burned It All Down and Built a Life That Feels Like Home

Two years ago this week, I sold everything I owned.

Not in a cute, downsizing, starting-a-van-life way.

In a “burn it all down because I can’t carry the weight of this life any longer” kind of way.

I was getting divorced. I packed what little I wanted to keep—my mattress, my TV, my PlayStation—and moved across the street into a tiny condo that would become my sanctuary.

My nightstand? A stack of pizza boxes. My furniture? Nonexistent, and I lived like that for months. But for the first time in a long time, the silence felt safe.

Everyone thought I’d lost my mind.

Maybe I had.

But I knew deep down: I couldn’t bring the past into my present and expect a future that felt any different.

Every item from that house—every frame, fork, and throw pillow—was steeped in a life that no longer fit me. A life that dulled me. A life that almost broke me.

It was then I learned something that stuck with me: Not a single thing I owned held any real value.

We had called ourselves minimalists, but the truth was my ex-husband hated decorations. Called it “dust collectors.” We never decorated. No color. No personality. No warmth. And somewhere along the way, I convinced myself I agreed. I let myself shrink into bare walls and blank rooms because it kept the peace.

I cleaned like I was still trying to impress someone—like I was staging a home for happy newlyweds that never really moved in.

But peace, I’ve since learned, isn’t found in erasing yourself to make someone else comfortable. It’s found in becoming more of yourself.

Now? I decorate with intention. With soul.

My home is an emporium—layered, rich, warm, chaotic in the best way. A little magical. A little haunted.

Every corner holds a story. Every object, a whisper from the past or a nod to where I’m going. Friends walk in and ask, “Where’d you get this?” and I light up—because everything here means something.

I’m a maximalist now.

Not in the trendy way—but in the “I refuse to hide anymore” way.

Maximalist in color. In meaning.

And maybe you’re reading this, sitting in a house that no longer feels like home. Or maybe you’re on the edge of change, scared to lose what’s familiar—even if it’s painful. Maybe you’re wondering if life really gets better after you’ve let it all go.

Let me be your proof:

It does. And not just better—it becomes everything you didn’t know you were allowed to want.

So here’s to the pizza box nightstands.

To the brave, messy, sacred act of starting over. And to building a life that finally feels like your own.