Today I Choose to be Unencumbered – How to be Unencumbered

Unencumbered ambushed me on an ordinary Thursday at 3:17 PM at Canopy Oaks. Curtis had finally gotten strong enough to drive our golf cart after months of recovery—still 50 pounds lighter, still fragile, but desperate to feel normal.

We were just going to “putter around the property trails”—careful, slow, responsible.

But when Curtis hit that first straightaway, something shifted. He looked at me with this teenage grin and floored it.

When Weight Suddenly Lifts

Suddenly we were flying—really flying—down those sandy trails. Spanish moss blurred overhead. My carefully styled hair went completely feral. Pine needles and palmetto brushed the cart. I heard this sound—took me a second to realize it was me, laugh-shrieking like a kid on a roller coaster.

For six months, every breath had carried weight: Will his heart hold up? Is this too much? What if something happens? Every moment filtered through fear, measured in milligrams and percentages and careful, careful, careful.

But flying down that trail at definitely-not-safe speeds, all of it vanished. No medication schedules. No follow-up appointments hammering my calendar. No walking on eggshells. No Being Strong for Everyone. Just wind and speed and Curtis’s face—alive, really alive—for the first time since the hospital.

My chest did this thing—literally felt my ribs expand like I’d been breathing through a coffee stirrer for months and suddenly got a full lungful. We were just two slightly ridiculous people in love, absolutely too old for this, completely unencumbered by anything including good sense.

The Physical Sensation of Freedom

Unencumbered has a specific feeling in the body:

• Chest expansion: Like your ribcage remembers it can actually open fully
• Shoulder drop: They fall from their permanent position near your ears
• Breath deepening: From shallow anxiety sips to full belly breaths
• Face softening: Muscles you didn’t know were clenched release
• Spine lengthening: Like you’ve been carrying invisible bricks and suddenly set them down

When we finally stopped, both gasping and giddy, Curtis grabbed my hand. “I forgot we could feel like this,” he said.

Me too. I’d forgotten what it felt like to exist without weight.

The Accumulation We Don’t Notice

That’s the thing about encumbrance—it accumulates so slowly you don’t notice. One worry at a time. One responsibility. One fear. One obligation. Like picking up pebbles on a hike, each one seems insignificant until suddenly you can barely walk.

Before Curtis’s health crisis, I was already carrying:

• CFO responsibilities for 18 companies
• Compliance deadlines that never stop
• Adult children’s struggles I can’t fix
• Aging parents’ increasing needs
• Financial pressures that wake me at 3 AM
• The weight of being the “responsible one”

Then add months of medical terror, and I was basically walking around as a human paperweight. I’d forgotten what unencumbered even felt like.

Unencumbered vs. Irresponsible

Here’s what I learned on that golf cart: unencumbered isn’t the same as irresponsible.

• Irresponsible ignores reality; unencumbered takes a break from it
• Irresponsible abandons obligations; unencumbered temporarily sets them down
• Irresponsible pretends problems don’t exist; unencumbered chooses moments of freedom despite them
• Irresponsible is permanent escape; unencumbered is temporary relief

We still had medical bills. Curtis still needed careful monitoring. Work still waited. But for those fifteen minutes flying through Canopy Oaks, we chose to be unencumbered by all of it.

The Courage to Set Things Down

It takes a specific kind of courage to be unencumbered, especially at our age when responsibilities multiply like rabbits:

The courage to:

• Stop carrying everyone else’s emotional weight
• Let go of control for a moment
• Choose joy over vigilance
• Risk looking foolish
• Prioritize feeling alive over being careful

That Thursday, Curtis’s teenage grin gave me permission. If he could choose to fly after nearly dying, I could choose to let go of my death grip on careful.

Creating Unencumbered Moments

Since that golf cart revelation, I’ve been deliberately creating unencumbered moments:

Morning coffee on the porch: Fifteen minutes where emails don’t exist, to-do lists are invisible, and I’m just a woman with coffee watching birds.

Evening walks: Phone stays home. No podcasts. No productivity. Just movement without purpose.

Saturday painting: Dutch pour with no goal except watching colors flow. No one to impress. No standard to meet.

Shower concerts: Belting out songs badly, forgetting I’m 61 with serious responsibilities.

Midnight snacks: Eating cereal from the box like a teenager, unencumbered by nutrition guidelines or adult dignity.

The Ripple Effect of Lightness

That golf cart ride changed something. Not just for that day, but fundamentally. It reminded us that we could still choose lightness. Curtis started making more jokes. I stopped checking his pulse constantly. We began planning things beyond medical appointments.

Being unencumbered, even briefly, creates possibility. It reminds you that the weight you carry is partly choice. Yes, responsibilities are real. But the way we carry them—the death grip, the constant vigilance, the refusal to set them down even for a moment—that’s optional.

Unencumbered in Small Doses

You don’t need a golf cart or recovered husband or perfect moment to feel unencumbered. It lives in tiny pockets:

• The first thirty seconds after waking, before remembering your to-do list
• The moment when a song you love comes on and you dance badly
• The decision to eat dessert first
• The choice to skip the news
• The text you don’t answer immediately
• The meeting you leave right on time
• The “no” you say without explanation

Each small unencumbering creates space for more.

The Weight That Won’t Leave

Some burdens can’t be set down. Chronic illness. Financial reality. Family obligations. Loss. These are the non-negotiables that travel with us.

But even with permanent weight, moments of unencumbered exist. Curtis still has heart issues. We still have medical debt. Work still overwhelms. But we can still fly down a sandy trail, laughing like idiots, temporarily free.

That’s the revelation—unencumbered isn’t about having no problems. It’s about occasionally refusing to carry them, even when they’re still there.

The Practice of Putting Things Down

I’m practicing being unencumbered like it’s a skill:

Name the weight: Actually list what I’m carrying. Sometimes just seeing it written helps me realize what I can temporarily set down.

Schedule freedom: Literally calendar “unencumbered time” like it’s a meeting with the CEO (of my life).

Create physical lightness: Clean out one drawer, delete old emails, take off jewelry—physical unencumbering triggers mental unencumbering.

Practice saying “not now”: Not “no,” just “not now” to the worry, the obligation, the have-to.

Find your golf cart: Whatever gives you that flying feeling—find it, do it, choose it.

The Permission to Fly

At 61, after decades of accumulating responsibilities, I’m learning that being unencumbered isn’t selfish—it’s necessary. It’s how we remember we’re more than our obligations. It’s how we stay alive instead of just functioning.

That Thursday at 3:17 PM, Curtis gave me permission to fly. Now I’m giving you the same permission: Set something down. Choose lightness, even if it’s brief. Let yourself be ridiculous. Drive too fast (metaphorically or literally). Laugh until you shriek.

Remember what you feel like without the weight.

The Invitation to Lightness

Whatever you’re carrying right now—and I know it’s a lot—remember that unencumbered doesn’t require solving anything. It just requires occasionally setting things down.

Find your version of that golf cart ride. Create your moment of flight. Even if it’s small. Even if it’s silly. Even if you’re “too old” or “too responsible” or “too busy.”

That’s the revelation about being unencumbered—it’s not about having no responsibilities or problems solved. It’s about those rare moments when you set down every weight you didn’t realize you were carrying and remember what you feel like without them.

Even if it’s brief. Even if it’s reckless. Especially when you thought you’d never feel light again.

The weight will still be there when you come back. But you’ll remember what it feels like to fly. And sometimes, that memory is enough to keep going.