Retail Therapy

Part of me is afraid that I’m shopping to compensate for the void left when she left. Part of me expects to see her again, which explains why I want to crowd my little life with things. Nice things and very useful things, yet things nonetheless. It’s been 50 days since I’ve last communicated with her, and I never thought I’d make it this far. Here I am, though.

It’s not all about her, though. It never was, really. I’m happy with my purchases. I know they’ll be used on a daily basis, and that’s money well spent, I think. Most of the stuff I’ve bought won’t come for at least another week, maybe sooner, but that’s fine. My bag came yesterday, and that’s kept me super happy today. I took her with me when I did laundry, and she’s so damn awesome and convenient and drool-worthy. I’ve never had this sort of attraction for a bag before, but I guess there’s first times for everything.

One of my flaws here is that I hope to see her again. I feel there’s still hope with us, that we can still be friends somehow, and I’m clinging to that so strongly that it’s blinding me from the truth. The truth is that we’re over, have been over for a long time, and there’s no turning back. I don’t know how to make myself believe that, though. How can I make myself believe there’s no shred of hope left?

I want to find someone else, and that thought has stayed in my mind while I’ve been buying things for my home. I’m eventually going to bring a girl over, and I want my place to impress her. That’s perfectly human. I’ve been sweating as many of the details as possible, been making mental lists of all the little things I want to get or do to make my place really my own. This is the first time in my life I’ve ever had a place of my own, and I’ve been living here for 22 months with very little to show for it. It’s time to change that.

For the longest time I thought I wasn’t going to stay here in Montana for long. I embraced Minimalism because I didn’t want to weigh myself down with stuff just in case I needed to fly back to California. I wanted to know how to live with less, and I did. However, I have a great job, a great car, a great place, and a great summer gig fighting fires. I’ve settled down and grown roots here. It’s time to think about my long-term happiness, and that does involve stuff.

My first phase of purchases focused on my desk area and a few lifestyle things. I bought those posters from Ugmonk this morning I linked to yesterday. I will form a sort of tryptic with two of them and my Holstee manifesto poster. This will be my wall of inspiration I will always see first thing in the morning when I write, and later in the evening when I’m working out. My MacBook Air will be propped up with the mStand, promoting better posture and ergonomics. My new Apple keyboard and Magic Pad will complement and help. I bought my bag to contain everything I need when I need to go out, but I still needed a way to carry my credit cards and ID, so I bought a new wallet. It’s a slim wallet from Bellroy. It’ll come with the rest of my stuff. I bought a 32 GB USB flashdrive that fits great in my keychain, and that’ll help me troubleshoot computers at work since I’ll load it up with the Sysinternals suite. I can finally check my body fat percentage with my new pair of fat calipers, and once my new Cocoon GRID-IT! arrives, I’ll be able to organize my second Magsafe power adapter and lightning cable for when I need them at work. I can finally keep my current adapter off the floor and in my little Ikea basket nailed underneath my desk to keep my cords at bay. Lastly, my new FM tuner will treat me well during my commute to work because I can finally listen to more podcasts instead of the same five songs on the radio.

I’m not sure how many phases I’ll need to complete my home, but I have a few ideas for my second phase. I’m in no rush for that yet, especially since I want to wait and not make any rash decisions. Most of the stuff I bought in the first phase have been on my mind for months, maybe even years, so I knew what I was getting when I bought them. This whole project will take me a few months, even though I cringe at that thought since I want her to enter my life before then, and I want to be done with this.

I need to stop that. I need to slow down, forget about her, and focus on myself. I’m still unhappy sometimes and a big reason why is her. If my happiness toward a single bag is any indication, retail therapy is maybe what I needed.