There's a bottle of shampoo sitting in my bathroom that I've owned for almost ten years. It has moved with me five times across Milan. It even came with me to Australia. It has more stamps on its metaphorical passport than most people I know — and until last week, I had never once opened it. Today we are talking about it.

Let me explain.

Growing up, I never lacked the essentials. There was always food on the table, hot water, clothes on my back. But compared to many of my friends, things were modest — and I was aware of that. So whenever something felt expensive or special, I held onto it. Saved it. Waited for the right moment to use it.

The shampoo came from my mother. I must have been seventeen or eighteen. She'd taken me to a specialty beauty store — the kind with soft lighting, in a fancy neighbourhood of São Paulo, with staff who actually knew exactly what they were selling — and she picked out this shampoo for me. I still remember the moment at the register, seeing the price and feeling genuinely shocked. It was more than I'd ever spent on hair products. More than I thought hair products could cost. 

• So I brought it to Italy. Then to Australia. Then back. Through five apartments, two countries, and nearly a decade of life — the bottle came with me, unopened, waiting. For what, exactly? I could never say.

And the longer I waited, the more the waiting accumulated. Every month that passed added weight to the imaginary occasion I was saving it for. And the heavier that occasion became, the less any real moment could ever live up to it. A regular day? No. A birthday? Maybe, but which one? A move to a new place? I'd already done that four times without opening it. The perfect moment kept not arriving — because I kept making it impossible to arrive.

• How many of us do this? We save the good outfit for an occasion that feels worthy enough. We hold off on the dream trip because we want to do it only on our honeymoon. The restaurant, the phone call, the thing we've been meaning to say — all of it waiting for the right time, the right version of ourselves, the right circumstances to align. And the right time, of course, never comes. Because we keep raising the bar every time it gets close.

Here's the thing that makes it even more absurd: the price that shocked seventeen-year-old me would barely register today. It's not a cheap shampoo, of course, but I earn in euros now. I buy hair products in that same price range when I need to. The financial logic that made saving it feel reasonable no longer exists — and yet I still couldn't bring myself to open it, because I was already caught in the loop of waiting.

Last week, on a completely ordinary Tuesday in early March 2026, my regular shampoo ran out. No special occasion. No milestone. No reason at all, really — except that it was there, and I finally wanted to.

So I opened it.

And honestly? It's wonderful. And so it was the random Tuesday I finally let it be enough.

With love, Micael.