Little Breakthroughs

By October 2019, I was fighting hard not to backslide into my old ways. But the shopping ban, failure or not, had already taught me so much - and at least it had saved me some money. I'd been keeping a running list of everything I considered buying - and mostly hadn't bought. I was starting to see how much I was in my own head, and how much of that related to acquisition or image. Turning it over in my head all the time, what my style should be or represent, what I could buy to make it so, as if my personality and existence were a puzzle I could solve only by shopping.

When had stuff become of such importance to me? I was surprised, and ashamed, to realise that the acts of acquiring, storing, and searching for things to own had taken the starring role in my life story. I had no long term goals, no big ideas for what I wanted to do with my short time on earth, but I knew that the plan had never been to become the custodian of the Me Museum. 

In his book All Consuming, Neal Lawson points out that previous generations of humanity defined themselves by what they produced, whereas we now define ourselves by what we own, what we buy. Was it any coincidence that as my Instagram use went up and my obsession with shopping skyrocketed, I lost interest in drawing, writing, making art in myriad small ways?

I didn't like this person I had turned into, this set of greedy, grasping values that had replaced anything meaningful I'd once striven for. This was no time for giving up.  

I ruthlessly edited my Amazon wishlist. I suddenly felt that I wanted nothing coming into my life that I wasn't totally excited about. I'd noticed a panicky feeling in bookshops that there seemed to be less books that I might want to read, yet I hadn't finished the stockpile I'd built up working in a charity shop years ago! Not to mention the beloved old books I hadn't had chance to re-read in years. 

I was amazed by how much more I was beginning to enjoy and appreciate the things I already had. DVDs, books, colouring books, notebooks, yarn and needles, sketchbooks... I could entertain myself for years without needing to buy a single new thing. I had also rediscovered the pleasure of savouring a thing before moving on to the next. Each individual book in a series gave me so much more enjoyment when I wasn't racing through to tick the next one off the list.

This was also the first month when I noticed a marked decline in those feelings of comparison that had been plaguing me. Rather than fretting about my style (or fashion, the vapid, twittering cousin of personal style), I simply put on my clothes and had done with it. If we were going out, I'd wear slightly nicer jeans, a smarter top, maybe a bit of make-up. At home, I wore scruffs. 

Every now and again my brain helpfully suggested that I could be sexier, happier or more fulfilled if I just bought a new outfit whenever I wanted. 

But mostly I'd just... stopped thinking about it. What I had was enough. I was enough. A brief pang of wanting, and the feeling would pass. 

It was around this time that The T-Shirt arrived. My skin had flared up, thanks to a foundation that really didn't agree with me, and my hair badly needed a wash with clarifying shampoo to remove some nasty sticky product build-up. Neither looking nor feeling my best, I pulled on The T-Shirt, this life-changing garment, this thing I'd built up in my head as the one last touch I needed to be complete...

And I was embarrassed to admit that when I looked in the mirror, there was a distinct sense of anticlimax. I still looked a bit crap and felt a bit deflated. I was just wearing a different shirt. 

Just like everything else hanging in my wardrobe, the high The T-Shirt gave me couldn't last beyond the point of purchase. I had been a sucker for a killer tagline and a good photography campaign. But it was still just a t-shirt.

This was the month the Spud turned one. I barely remember now what presents I bought him. I remember he was far more interested in eating the wrapping anyway.

I remember that we threw him a party and invited far too many people, almost all of whom came. Dai and I spent two days cleaning the house, hiding the assorted detritus of family life with an active baby who had got the hang of this walking malarkey two months previous (a boddler?). When party time came, we had guests packed in two to an armchair, sitting on the floor, perched on the coffee table. I wore a wafty floral blouse from the charity shop and a shiny blue cardboard crown and spent much of the party alternating between doing the music for pass the parcel - a brilliant power trip - and trying to coax the Spud out of the kitchen, where he had taken wide-eyed refuge from this influx of visitors. 

Dai had made a Tigger cake from scratch with a rented cake tin, a thing I hadn't imagined existed in this day and age. The cake was brilliant orange and big enough to feed about forty people. Dai wasn't happy with how the icing turned out and I was so overwrought already that his disappointment reduced me to tears! 

Emotional overload notwithstanding, it was a wonderful day, full of love and mayhem. We didn't have Pinterest-worthy themed decor and we didn't spend a fortune, and it was possibly all the better for that 

And so October and November, aside from a lot of fuss about Christmas shopping, passed with a feeling of great optimism - finally, the lessons I was learning were starting to sink in.

February Accountability

This month, I finally gave in and had a huge clear out of my wardrobe. January's gentle filtering hadn't done the job, and I was finding that tidying, organising, moving, hunting through, laundering and repairing my 200-plus garments was taking up way too much time and headspace - not to mention the daily dilemma of trying to choose what I wanted to wear amongst the should-wears, the never-wears, the it'd-be-great-if-not-for-that-weird-stain items. I'd tidied the rest of our bedroom, but my huge heaps of clothes that didn't fit into my wardrobe or storage boxes meant that it still looked messy.

I was frightened of being ruthless after my two previous clear out disasters of 2019 and 2020, but Topaz had just had a big clear out herself and was able to encourage me through it. Eventually something just seemed to click, and I suddenly felt lighter and more clearheaded. The only setback was that after taking some bags down to the clothing bank, I discovered I could actually have made a little money by using Loopster. But never mind! (I'd also sent some items to Re-Fashion and Thrift+, I have a couple of items for eBay, and two or three bags went to family and friends.)

The reason I think it went better this time than last time was that I haven't been constantly buying in between, so I've gotten to know myself a little better and understand what I like, as well as what I do and don't wear. Whilst I didn't want to be wasteful, eventually I knew that my headspace and peace of mind needed to take priority - I've been saying all along that I want to stop thinking about clothes all the time, and I hope that now I've managed to get myself to a place where that can happen.

Happily, my allowed purchase for this month was not clothing! On the first of the month I had an email to say that an item I'd been interested in was back in stock, and although it was utterly frivolous I decided to go for it, as I thought it was really beautiful and would make me smile. I'd been debating all through January what I might buy next, and initially I was concerned that my eventual choice of purchase was quite random, but I think I've made a good choice as it's very 'me' and I love to see it in my home. It was this LED cushion with artwork by Lisa Parker.

I also had an 'oops' moment, where I realised I was putting off making some necessary purchases because I was counting them under the low-buy rules. Really it was a bit mean-spirited towards myself to treat foot cream and a treatment for a dry scalp like frivolities or treats. The aim of this game is not to buy as little as possible or to live a monastic life but to learn how to make better choices with my money. So I've ordered my scalp treatment and will shortly be picking up some shea butter from the health shop for my poor, unhappy feet!