🎙️ Episode 7

Title: “I Cleaned My Car and Found My Personality in the Glove Compartment”

Wristbands, flashbacks, and one rogue AirPod that might still be judging me.

🎵 [Imaginary Intro Music: Car ignition + Squirrel chatter + poppy bass drop]

Hi. I’m Angela. Queen of Focus-ish.
And this week, I made a mistake.

I cleaned… my car.

I know.
That sentence alone is triggering for some of you.
But I wasn’t planning to clean it.
I was just trying to find that one missing power cord.

You know the one — the cord that ONLY fits that one device, and now that device is suddenly the center of your entire workflow.
It was urgent. It was mission critical.
So naturally… I spiraled.

🧽 The Car Spiral Begins:

Under the passenger seat, I found:

• An AirPod (LEFT side, missing since 2022, assumed stolen by squirrels)
• A crunchy receipt from a gas station hot dog I have no memory of eating
• Three wristbands from three different festivals
• A friendship bracelet from a stranger named “Thistle”
• And a light layer of what I hope was glitter, but may have been trail mix dust
  
  

Each item was like a memory grenade.

The wristbands alone sent me down emotional rabbit holes:

• This one? That was from the year I camped too close to the speaker tower at TTITD and journaled through a full identity crisis.
• This one? The time we camped out in the car at Okee with no cell phone signal to call the sitter.
• And this one? Honestly… I have no idea. Could be mine. Could be someone else’s. There’s a mysterious aura on it and I’m not ruling out time travel.
  
  

🎯 The Realization?

Cars are portable doom piles.

Tiny, rolling memory closets filled with lost tech, old snacks, and echoes of our burnout.

But also?
They’re time machines.
They hold moments of music, movement, and full-body meltdowns.

So yes — I vacuumed.
I cried.
I reunited my AirPods.
And I found the dang cord.

And I labeled a pouch “Tech That Deserves Better.”

Because that’s what this was really about:
Giving my past self a little order. A little love. A little air freshener.

🎵 Subscribe to Doom Piles & Distractions.
Next up: I inventory my musical instruments and realize I may be trying to heal my inner child with a ukulele collection.

🐿️✨

Learn more at AngelaDiCarlo.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I Tried to Label My Emotional Baggage and Ended Up Sorting My Inbox from 2011

1,483 unread emails and a therapy breakthrough, all before lunch.

🎵 [Imaginary Theme Music: Sparkle-chaos piano with the sound of a squirrel flipping through manila folders]

Hi. I’m Angela. Queen of Focus-ish.
And today I decided to sort my emotional baggage.

Which obviously meant opening my email inbox.
Because where else would I find unresolved issues, outdated dreams, and 73 conversations I ghosted out of sheer executive dysfunction?

You see, I meant to clean out my downloads folder.
That was the original quest. Just a tiny digital tidy-up.

But then... I saw the inbox.
And my ADHD brain whispered:

“What if there’s a coupon in there from 2014 you still need?”

And so it began.
The Great Spiral of Gmail.

ACT ONE: The Ghosts of Projects Past

I found:

• A pitch deck for a business I almost launched called “Glitter Strategy”
  
  
• Five unanswered emails from someone named Derek (??)
  
  
• A boarding pass from a flight to a festival that quite literally changed my life
  
  
• And a newsletter from 2011 titled “This Is Your Year” — which was bold, considering what happened next
  
  

Reading it all felt like emotional archaeology.
Like digging through layers of my ambition, my avoidance, my deeply aspirational Canva folders.

It wasn’t just an inbox.
It was a museum of almosts.

ACT TWO: Emotional Baggage Claim

So I made a new folder.
I called it:

“Unfinished But Beautiful”

I started dragging emails there. Old collaborations. Kind words. Ideas I never finished — but don’t want to delete.

It’s like giving my past self a soft landing.
Not every dream needs to go in the trash.
Some just need a quiet place to rest.

Then I made a second folder:

“Return to Sender (Not Your Problem Anymore)”

That's where I put the old guilt, the feedback I didn’t ask for, the “just following up” emails from someone trying to sell me a webinar I never wanted.

That folder? That folder healed me.

ACT THREE: Labels, Liberation & Letting Go

Yes, I labeled my emotional baggage.
But I also realized this:

Every old email is proof that I’ve tried.
That I’ve dreamed.
That I’ve been deeply, beautifully alive.

And even if I never reply to 90% of those threads…
I am still worthy.
Still enough.
Still exactly where I’m meant to be.

🎵Subscribe to Doom Piles & Distractions.

Next episode: I organize my junk drawer and end up reinventing my identity.

Until then — bless your inbox.
Bless your ambition.
And bless the parts of you that still believe it’s okay to try again.

🐿️✨

Learn more at AngelaDiCarlo.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I Labeled My Shoe Bins and Accidentally Discovered Boundaries:

Footwear, feelings, and the shocking truth about what you actually want in your hallway.

🎵 [Imaginary Theme Music: slightly dramatic string pluck, then twinkly squirrel flourish]

Hi. I’m Angela. Queen of Focus-ish.
And I’m here to tell you about the moment I labeled my shoe bins… and accidentally discovered a boundary I didn’t know I needed.

It started with a hallway.

Specifically, the hallway that had become a lawless frontier of footwear.
There were hiking boots from optimism.
Heels from events I didn’t actually attend.
One glittery sandal I don’t even remember owning.

And I thought to myself: “I’ll just organize this.”
That was the first lie.

Because what actually happened is that I started thinking about who those shoes belonged to.

Not just physically, like “those are my partner’s”, but energetically.
Some of them were shoes I bought for versions of myself I thought I should be.

The chic conference queen.
The Pinterest Burner in mile-high boots maximalist.
The person who wears shoes with laces regularly, like a responsible citizen.

And as I sat there, holding a leopard print boot in one hand and a roll of label tape in the other, I had the weirdest realization:

This hallway needs boundaries.
And so do I.

So I made four bins:

• Me
• Cody
• Other Grown Human (Glen)
• Costumes & Regrets

I labeled them. I lined them up.
And suddenly… I felt taller.
Not just because the heels were off the floor, but because something shifted.

👠 Here’s the truth:

We think clutter is just stuff.
But sometimes, it’s evidence of where we’re saying “yes” when we meant “maybe,”
or “sure” when we meant “NO THANK YOU PLEASE LEAVE YOUR SHOES AT THE DOOR.”

So now, my hallway is clear.
My bins are labeled.
My soul feels… moderately empowered.

And every time someone asks, “Where should I put my shoes?”
I point to the bin.
Smile.
And say:

“That one’s for you. The rest are mine.”

Boundaries. They’re not just for people anymore.
They’re for hallways.
And footwear.
And expectations.

🎵 Subscribe to Doom Piles & Distractions.

Next episode: I try to label my emotional baggage and end up sorting my inbox from 2011.

Until then — protect your space.
Label your bins.
And wear the shoes that feel like you.

🐿️✨

Learn more at AngelaDiCarlo.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.