Shopping for Fun

I like to practice believing what I'm wearing doesn't really matter. I know this to be true. However, somewhere deep inside I am drawn to buying new clothes. It's something I struggle with, because I clearly understand that the meaningless collection of  clothes does nothing to improve my overall quality of life. (Something as I near 30, I realize is the only thing that matters.) I have been joyfully toting bountiful bags of new and exciting items out of shopping malls for as long long as I can remember. Marching to the car with audacity, a sense of what is possible in the world, getting high on my fix of the novelty, the better me. Problem is, after years and years of flying high on the hopes of the life my new wardrobe might bring me, I'm still me. I've never turned into the happier, cooler, sexier and more confident version of myself that I envisioned as I'm trying on and eagerly handing over my plastic. So what gives.

Sometimes I can go for months without shopping. If I feel content, with my clothes or my life in general, and am not thinking about those 1 or 2 things I "need," I can sustain long periods of retail celibacy. I'm also very good at going shopping, trying on just for fun, and then abandoning the idea and heading home empty handed. Sometimes it's like I'm in a trance thinking about how much I need, want, and desire EVERYTHING in the store - only suddenly to have an awakening that none of these items will contribute to my wholeness as a human being and how materialistic and superficial it all is. I've left dressing rooms filled with unimportant items, carts at Target, abandoned in a flash of guilt ridden reality. Tucked at the end of an uncrowded aisle, where no one will see me in my moment of bravado as I walk away. Like the remnants of a home after foreclosure or natural disaster, the adorable outfits, trite pieces of fabric that could have been MINE, instead lay crumpled on dressing room floors, a reminder of what almost was.

Feeling spiritually connected, being healthy, living authentically and sharing myself with my friends and family. A career that I'm passionate about. These are the things that make a life happy and fulfilled. Maybe it's time I stop feeling so guilty about my shopping habit and embrace it as a vice, a temporary source of fun and joy for my life, similar to chocolate, or a great movie. What I aim to do is to shop more infrequently, but without the self judgement. Maybe knowing none of the items will make me a more wholesome and fulfilled being spiritually, will help me to enjoy the futility of my retail therapy for what it is. Awesome, exhilarating, temporary, adorable, fabulous fun.