Retail Therapy

I have an absurd number of things. I care about the things that are new, and I don't care much for anything older than my newest thing; but it wasn't always that way. I can look at all my things, new and old, and remember a time when I thought "this thing will make me happy and turn my life around".

I once read that yoga makes you leaner and taller, so I bought a pink yoga mat. Upon not getting leaner and taller by only staring at the yoga mat, I became upset. You would think I would learn: I didn't need a pink yoga mat to be leaner and taller, I needed to get off my ass and do yoga. I should know by now, at 28, that I don't need an expensive yoga mat more than I need to not be lazy. But not being lazy seemed a lot harder than yoga-mat-staring. I thought that maybe I could get leaner and taller if I stared at two pink yoga mats at once. I now own two pink yoga mats with zero intention of ever doing yoga. Maybe I think that if my friends come over and see all my yoga mats, they will think I like yoga, and their collective belief will make me lean and tall.

Another example is my clothing collection. I only wear jeans and t-shirts- all the time. For work and for everything else. However, that doesn't stop me from buying 50 thousand dresses and 40 million pairs of high heels. When I go shopping, and I convince myself to buy these things, I am 99% sure that the new clothes will transform my inner and outer being. I buy the clothes under the illusion that I have the correct silhouette to wear them, and that I will want to wear them. When I buy all of these dresses, I tell myself that I can wear them to work and they will look cute. The kicker is, sadly, girls with curves can't wear mini dresses and look cute. Due to my large breasts, I can only wear mini dresses and look like a a low-high end prostitute.

When I brought home my first mini sundress, I put it in my closet and stared at it. Every morning I woke up, put on jeans and a t-shirt, and sat on my bed staring into the closet that held my mini sundress. But I was the same. I didn't mystically wake up with the physique required to not look like a tramp at work. If I had worn that dress to work, I would have gotten fired. But even more sad is the fact that I didn't even WANT to wear the mini dress. I am not the type of girl that gets up early and wants to dress up. But I want to be that type of girl. So, I tried to sleep with the mini sundress under my pillow in hopes to become different through osmosis, but nothing happened. When I woke up without the ideal body and personality to wear the dress, I went out and bought 49 more- thinking one of them had to be the magical dress that would transform me....which, to clear up any confusion, isn't a real possibility.  Feeling frustrated, I thought: "Maybe if I watch Disney movies where magical things happen, AND stare at the dresses, AND sleep on them and use osmosis, they will look good on me and I will want to wear them."

I now have 2 yoga mats and 50 dresses that I never use or wear.

I haven't even gotten to the saddest part, which is that I have a deeply disheartening inability to learn from my excess of things. It appears that I need to continue to collect things until the day when one of those things is the extraordinary item I have been waiting for. I currently feel that said extraordinary thing is a designer bag. I decided this yesterday, as I was observing the multiple holes in my current tote bag. Right now, I am thinking that a designer tote bag, especially a blue one with brown handles, will make me sophisticated. It will make random strangers on the train like me more, or at least judge me less. But I know, deep down, that a designer bag won't give me more class; because sophisticated people don't wear the same 3 t-shirts in rotation, with the same pair of jeans, all week long. A designer tote bag will also not change how terrible I am at being alive. I can have ALL the designer tote bags in Boston, and still only want to watch ABC Family shows on Netflix and do nothing else. Not very glamorous.

I know that these objects won't make me any more or less than the person I am now; but it's incredibly exhausting thinking about all the REAL things that would make me better- the gym, therapy, self-respect, a career. I can't even list them all without needing a nap. And, although my (lack of) success rate in collecting stuff has established an undeniably strong argument, I still think there is a "things-loophole" out there. I truly believe I will find something so amazing that it will trick my brain into thinking I have all of the commodities necessary to better myself, but I won't have to do any work...

It is just a matter of finding it.

LD