I just love buying things.
On Tuesday I finally signed a new writing client. The last 10 months living in Mexico have been some of my life’s most beautiful and also some of my life’s most nerve wracking…I had NO idea the challenge I was up against to make a decent living remotely without a background in tech. But I managed and now I can breathe.
By breathe I mean obsess over all the items I want to buy/all the appointments I want to make/all the people I want to visit/all the places I want to go. My mind is swirling with snapshots of lampshades, whiter teeth, $0 credit card balances, massage appointments. Mostly, though, it’s flying high on planes to various destinations around the world. I want to go here, here, here and there.
On Wednesday I was making my bed, in a big way. I had washed the duvet, let it hang dry in the sun on my rooftop, lugged it back down 4 flights of stairs so I could stuff my cushiony white comforter inside and arrange the bed linens just so, line up the pillows in a smart and inviting way and then continue with the other things I wanted to do that day. Each movement accompanied by my racing mind “I’d love to go to Spain, Italy, France, Ecuador, Vietnam, Argentina…”
Smack in the middle of my attempt at “burrito rolling” (skip to 34 sec) my comforter snugly into my charcoal gray duvet from Ikea, I got distracted by something in the living room.
Whatever distracted me, I don’t remember. Doesn’t matter. In the living room was my computer. I sat down in front of it. I checked some emails, real quick. Then I checked Upwork, real quick. I started reading an article, real quick. I scrolled my phone which led me to poking around Kayak, an insanely dangerous app for a mind like mine. Back to my computer, I wrote for a while. Back to my phone, signed up for a yoga class. Back and forth and back and forth.
Suddenly, hours had gone by and it was nearly time to leave for yoga. So I tackled the most pending of all my tasks.
I booked a flight to Milan.
After which I zoomed back into my bedroom to put on my basic Lululemon pants. And there was my unmade bed. Disheveled. Half burrito rolled. I involuntarily lifted my chin to one side in complete confusion. What the hell did I just do?
I observed as my emotions shuffle frantically between guilt and anticipation. My stomach was somersaulting to the tune of an olympic gymnast.
I went to yoga.
On Thursday I met a friend to wander (wandering is what we do best). She loves to shop. I love to watch her, because shopping brings her so much joy and she makes it look like such a fun pastime. We popped into a tiny shop of organic products and perused. On the way out, she handed me a grain free, sugar free, flax-based donut and said “you know I couldn’t help myself. I just love buying things!”
As I opened the package that the donut resided in (everything is wrapped in plastic here: books, produce, snacks) I repeated that to myself in my head. “I just love buying things.” What a foreign set of words. The unfamiliarity of the phrase singed those deeply entrenched neural pathways of my brain. It almost made me wince.
Professionally, I’ve always been kind of all over the place. Only on a very rare occasion (twice? ever?) have I been in a stable financial position. For most of my adult life, buying things has made me uncomfortable. But now with my new project, I, too, have the ability to “love to buy things”. So why doesn't it feel that way?
External validation won’t change my thought patterns. Of course the client is a necessary means to the income. But regardless of the money, whether it be $5,000 or $5,000,000, my mentality will stay the same if I choose to let it. I have to actively shift it. Like, saying out loud that I love buying things and forcing myself to enjoy actually buying the thing until I do actually enjoy buying the thing.
Be the change you wish to see IN YOURSELF. Tackle the world another day.
With love,
Bethany
