The Handbag, the Hallelujah, and the Heavy Luggage

Saturday, 17 January 2026.

I’d like to blame the internet, or perhaps a lingering New Year’s Eve champagne bubble, but the truth is much more pathetic: my January shopping ban lasted approximately forty-eight hours.

By January 3rd, I wasn’t just browsing, I was all the way in comparing stitching, reading reviews of non-branded “alternatives,” and eventually, doing the thing I promised myself I wouldn’t do.

Click. Confirm Purchase.

I’m sitting here now, two weeks later, watching for the delivery truck like it’s bringing me the Holy Grail instead of just more vegan leather. It’s a strange, modern sickness, isn’t it? I may have long ago jettisoned the idea that a new year requires a new me/new look, but I’ve obviously done nothing to lose the love of shiny new things.

Lately, I’ve been somewhat obsessed with the word sojourner and what it represents: a dusty, biblical-sounding term for someone who is just passing through. A temporary resident. A person who lives in one place but keeps their heart tucked in the drawer of another.

That is exactly how I feel in midlife. Like I’m forever in between. Between places, between stages of life, between parents and children, and now between children and grandchildren, between home and work, Australia and Croatia, between faith and the digital world.

Every year, I travel halfway across the world to my other home in Croatia. It’s a place where the very air you breathe is different. The pressure and expectations I place on myself on a daily basis are lower. So much lower. There, I’m a minimalist by default. I re-wear the same three linen dresses until they’re soft as butter. I carry one handbag—one—for the entire month, and I feel absolutely fabulous. I feel light. I feel like the version of myself God intended before the mobile phone and all it’s algorithms got a hold of me.

But then I fly back here, to the land of “weekly hauls” and “must-haves.” And suddenly, this sojourner starts acting like a permanent resident of planet Amazon Prime. I start building a nest made of cardboard delivery boxes. I want all the stuff.

I feel like the root of it is ultimately vanity. It’s a bit of pride. Is there something to the notion that, after many years as a “mere” housewife, there’s a fear of disappearing in the crowd of midlife invisibility?

So, this blog is my attempt to unpack. Not just the boxes arriving on my porch, but the bags under my eyes and the clutter in my soul. I’m trying to figure out how to live like a true sojourner whose heart yearns for God while navigating the suburbs. I’m looking for the “enough” that I find so easily in my roots but lose so quickly in the checkout line.

Help me, Jesus. I’ve got a lot of luggage, and I think I’m ready to start leaving some of it behind.