When it comes to travelers, I feel like people are in one of two camps: those who unpack their suitcase as soon as they get home and those who leave that suitcase unpacked until it’s finally empty or time to pack up for the next time. Well, I think we can put Simone Biles in the second category. The 2024 Summer Olympics may have ended six months ago, but Simone shared to her Instagram stories that she’s “truly ashamed” to admit that she still has one suitcase (of clean clothing) that she still hasn’t unpacked.
Simone Biles reveals that she has more than a few remnants of the 2024 Olympics laying around her home. The 11-time Olympic medalist, 27, revealed on her Instagram Stories that she still has an “unpacked” suitcase that she brought back from the Paris Olympics, which ran from July 26 to Aug. 11.
The gymnast shared a photo of the blue baggage, which was left unzipped and showed several items including a white U.S.A. sweatshirt, a blue backpack and gray sweatpants. A pair of white sneakers could be seen on the floor beside the suitcase.
“I’m truly ashamed to admit that I still have not unpacked one of my suitcases from the Olympics,” she wrote over the photo, adding that it was full of “all clean clothes.”
This comes a month after the Olympian revealed in her cover story for Sports Illustrated that she has a “forbidden Olympics closet” in her home with husband Jonathan Owens, 29.
The “closet,” she explained at the time, is actually an infrequently used guest room, which the couple has turned into a designated space for the Olympic gear Biles has from the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. Sometimes, when her NFL player husband was away from home, she would pull out some of the items — such as leotards and Team USA pins — and cry, she told Sports Illustrated.
Hey, I get it. Unpacking is annoying. Taking six months, though…oh, man! At least Simone has clean clothing sitting in that suitcase and not dirty workout clothes or tournament uniforms. That makes sense, though. It’s much easier to empty a suitcase by throwing dirty clothing in the laundry bin or washing machine. Sometimes, the thought of putting things away is enough to procrastinate doing so.
So, where does everybody stand on unpacking? I am very much in the former category. I unpack myself and both of my kids within a few hours of us getting home. Even if it’s late at night, I have to, at the very least, dump all of the dirty clothing into the wash to feel like I’ve done something in the unpacking process. I just don’t like having half-filled suitcases lying around and if I don’t take care of them right away, I’ll probably let them sit for six months, too.
photos credit: IMAGO/Daniela Porcelli/Avalon and via Instagram/Simone Biles/GK Elite sportswear and People.com