It stayed, at first, out of hesitation more than intention—a bag too expensive to feel real, too heavy with someone else’s life to feel harmless. The narrator didn’t become richer by carrying it, only more aware of every room they stepped into. Interviews stopped feeling like desperate auditions and started to feel like mutual evaluations. The leather didn’t make them qualified, but it made them visible to themselves.
Over time, the bag softened, edges worn down by commutes, rejections, and small victories. It no longer felt like a costume; it felt like a relic from a version of themselves who still believed confidence had to be borrowed. Now, they keep it not as a trophy, but as a vow: to become, for someone else, the quiet, undeserved advantage that says, “Walk in. You already belong here.”
