Living Within My Means

For those of you who haven't talked to me in a while (and it would have to be a long while since this particular issue has been rather prominently on my mind for quite some time) I have completely stopped using my credit cards. They are tucked safely away in an envelope in Soul Twin's desk where, barring espionage, they can only be obtained with the explanation of some very logical reason why I would need them. Hence, I have embarked on a rather interesting adventure called, "Living Within My Means."

I feel as though I must first explain to you a bit about my financial history. My parents can never make enough money. Meaning that no matter how much they make they never seem to have enough. My father is compulsive in his spending habits, a behavior which vexes my mom, but often complains about having to go on trips to various family members' birthday parties and weddings. My brother makes almost no money but also has no bills. He still wears the same shorts my mom bought him from the good will probably 10 years ago, and when his jeans become too worn he makes them into jean shorts. He owns less and spends less than any human being I've ever met in my whole life. Well, any human being who isn't homeless. 

I got my first credit card in college. I thought, "HEY! Almost Free money!" I would put small purchases on the card; I would pay them back. Then I wanted bigger and bigger things. So I would charge them. Then I couldn't pay them back. So I accrued thousands of dollars in debt. At the end of my senior year of college my dad lent me the money to pay it off, and I paid him back by selling my car before moving to Boston. Then I went to grad school. I lived in dorm housing and then an apartment in the Back Bay. I took out extra loans so I could have more financial "security" (a.k.a. live beyond my means with money that wasn't from a credit card), and yet, even then, I used my credit cards. I graduated from grad school, got my first full-time job, and the first 6 months I couldn't BELIEVE how much money I made. And then I started the loan payments, which I couldn't pay and buy food. So I deferred half of them for 5 years. And then I maxed out my credit cards. Since then I have vacillated between paying them off in huge chunks, and then using the available balance to buy more shit. When I ran out of "real" money it was all right, because I could always afford to take myself out to a nice dinner or buy myself a new purse to ease the pain of my financial stupidity. Then I went on a 6 month spending spree, bought myself a new wardrobe. Then I remembered that in March of 2012 I HAVE to start paying the other half of my student loans. And then it was a month ago. And I now have a whole bunch of clothes, and a renewed sense of my own debt.  So I put myself on a payment plan, gave my credit cards to Soul Twin, all the while thinking, "How hard can this be?"

I would never have said I was addicted to spending money. But now that I must do it in this calculated way, I find that I, in fact, was. The buying of new things, of clothes, of food, it distracted me from my life. A brief feeling of exhilaration, of newness. A feeling that (as I mentioned in my blog about the coat) I would finally be able to be the person I always wanted. Because the person I always wanted to be could have everything she wanted all the time (as though any person really has that luxury).

What I'm saying is, it's so hard to let that go. Because it means I will never get to be that person.

Up until 6 months ago, I dreamed of what it would be like to be thin. I would be able to buy clothes I liked, men would want to date me, I would find the perfect job, I would be able to do a handstand in Yoga class, I would know what I wanted from my life, my dad wouldn't have any guilt, my mom would be happy. It seems so silly to say these things, but I honestly thought if I could be thin, my entire world would be at rights. 

So when I decided I wasn't going to actively try to be thin anymore, and when I decided I was going to instead try to love my body just as it was and is, I was agreeing to accept that all those ideals I had for myself and my life were as impossible as the thinness. 

The bottom line is that no matter how much our consumerist culture wants us to believe otherwise, no one thing will make the business of being a human being in the world any easier. No amount of thinness, or Chipotle burritos, or coats, or skirts can change the fact that there is struggle and that some experiences are pain beyond comprehension. I'm not saying there isn't joy, or even that we shouldn't take joy from having things. But where joy is the truest has nothing to do with physicality, at least not in the way of ownership.

And there is also joy in this surrender. As I let go of the unattainable ideals, I am able to actually sit with myself, to take stock of what I want, what I can do, to take the limitation that is my life and my past, and take my little broken pieces and make them into something I can love right now.

As I relinquish the ideals I have held so long in terms of how my life looks, I start to realize the beauty of things that are unseen and the value of that which costs nothing. 

That sounds so lame and so cliche, but I feel at a loss to express what it is to be faced with my actual life, to express what it feels like to find relief from the burden of impossible desires. It sounds like I've found God or something, but I promise I haven't. These burdens have not been taken away. I have just found relief from the struggle in the struggle. If that makes any sense at all.

Keep Calm and Wear A Tutu: Flowery Shirt from the Good Will (The Beginning of a Blog Within a Blog)

I've been talking about starting a blog of my outfits for about a month now. The reasons are 3-fold.

1) So that I can get free clothes sent to me from distributors.
I read many fat style blogs, and they always talk about getting sent clothes to review. 

Well, I want that to be me.

Dear eShakti, ASOS, Lucie Lu and others, please send me free clothes and I will tell my almost 40 readers how awesome those clothes are, I promise!!

2) Because I'm pretty proud of the outfits I've been putting together.
As I mentioned in my blog about skirts I used to love to dress up. And then I learned to hate my body so I dressed like crap so no one would look at me. And now I've learned to love it again, and I think I look pretty darn cute on any given day, and I want to share that cuteness with the WORLD!

3) Because I am learning to love pictures of myself at my current weight.

I decided on this final reason just last week when Jan took a picture of me sitting on top of a statue that looked like a butt.

After having a mini freakout, I decided the following: I look fat in photos because I am fat. And, in my opinion, one of the best ways to accept and love my fat body is to take full body shots of my fat body in cute clothes, often doing ridiculous things like perching ladylike atop a statue that looks like a butt.

I promise that I will still love things and write about all sorts of feelings on this blog as well. And even if you care not a lick about clothes, you can enjoy looking at pictures of me being cute. And if you don't enjoy looking at pictures of me being cute then EFF YOUR FACE.

But seriously. No offense taken. 

 

Today's outfit features a tunic style top I purchased from the good will while shopping with my friend Elizabeth, paired with some awesome leggings. Ladies at my work are always talking about things they can't wear because they are too old or their bodies aren't good enough. But I decided to listen to Jane Pratt and "DO THIS DON'T." Maybe fat people shouldn't wear leggings as pants. 

BUT MAYBE WE SHOULD.

Here's the Dets...

Flowery Top: Good Will ($5)

Leggings: Macy's ($22)

Booties: Lane Bryant (on sale for $35)

Yellow Necklace (and joy of my soul): Some antique shop in Dorchester ($1)

No lie, friends. When I look at this outfit I am AMAZED BY THE CUTE. I wonder, is that even me? And then I am overjoyed to remember that YES!! IT IS ME!!!!

What? You can't see my butt in this photo? Worry not.

And here's a close up just in case.

Hells to the Yes.

Things Deb Doesn't Love: Obsessing Over Things

I don't mean obsessing over something worth obsessing over. One might say I am obsessed with Heath at Every Size, or that I am obsessed with how awesome my friends are, or that I am obsessed with Diane and Heather's wedding and how awesome it is going to be or that I am obsessed with chunky, bearded guys. I freely and happily admit I am obsessed with these things. 

It's when I get obsessed with actual thing-things that I start to get... well... insane. And hence worried.

Recent obsession: this jacket.

Here are the reasons I am in love with this jacket: I have only owned 2 items in khaki my whole life: two pairs of ill-fitting pants I had to wear while I worked at Starbucks. Those pants, by the time my tenure at Starbucks was (thank god) finished were covered in coffee and tear stains. Coffee, from, well, the coffee, and tears from the times I would cry because my manager would tell me I needed to make the coffee drinks faster. Eventually I did. And by "made coffee drinks faster" I mean I made up coffee drinks. I had/have no clue what was supposed to go in half the drinks I made, so I just put in whatever struck my fancy. This was not a good Starbucks career move. They gave me fewer and fewer shifts until I just quit. 

But back to khaki. Whenever Soul Twin wears her khaki trench coat I think, "She looks so classy!" But every time I try on a khaki trench coat and look in a mirror I think, "Well, this isn't me." But did you notice the ruffles? It's a KHAKI TRENCHCOAT WITH RUFFLES. And you know what's all over the back of the coat (which I can't figure out how to capture an image of)? MORE. RUFFLES. When I first saw this on the interwebz I thought, "Huh. I like that." So I emailed it to myself so I could look at it the next day. And then I looked at it the next day (being today), and I have become obsessed with this coat. Literally obsessed.

Let me explain.

I am so obsessed with this coat that I feel if I do not purchase it right now it will be a significant life loss. 

Like if I don't have some sort of guaruntee that this coat will be mine I. WILL. DIE.

Ridic.

Here's the thing: I have recently bought a lot of clothes. Like a lot. I have a spent a lot of money on those clothes. I have almost bankrupted myself buying clothes. And about a week ago, with $1.50 in my bank account (shameful, I know) and my credits cards safely out of my grasp I decided I had to be done buying clothes. Because it was either clothes or food. And I might be slightly addicted to buying dresses, but I also kind of need to eat. So yes, the coat is on sale for $35. But  I could buy a lot of eggs and sprouted grain bread and lentils and veggie sausage and coffee with that. And I can live without that coat, but I can't live without my coffee.

But the point of this post isn't to discuss why I should or shouldn't buy the coat. It's to explore this seemingly manic need I have for things and the belief that these things will change the very definition of who I am. As though if I had a ruffley, khaki trench coat I would have all the classiness of Soul Twin with the all the immature, silliness of myself. As though, if I can just have and wear that coat, I will be my best and truest self. It sounds silly to write this out. But in my gut, I feel it. If I can just look the right way, I will be the right way. I will be put together. Men will want me. Women will want to be me. If I can just have that stupid, ruffley trench coat.

I keep thinking of an early episode of Mad Men when Don Draper gets high with his mistress's hippy friends. When the friends find out he is in advertising, one of them says, "You make the lie. You invent want."

So, I could try to opt out of this want-inventing system. But the (terrifying) reality of the system is that it is inside of me. It is embedded in my psyche: if I can look a certain way, I will be that way. What else would explain a sickening feeling in my stomach when I think about not obtaining a silly coat (a feeling that, even as I prove the silliness of the want, I STILL WANT)? It is overwhelming. 

I have lately been trying to pay attention to what happens in my body before I act compulsively, whether it regards food or coats or whatever. If it is something I do not, in my logical mind, need, how do I convince my huge feeling heart that I do not need it? A brownie or a coat or a new dress or new shoes or a new bike or whatever it may be. In my heart it FEELS like need. 

But it is not need.

Sometimes when I think of the things I want for my life, they are physical things: a condo in JP and children and husband and dog and all that. But sometimes, I just have to tell myself that what I want more than ANY one thing is to feel free from want. And contrary to what our culture would like us to believe, obtaining what we want does not free us from want.

Maybe in a moment of weakness I will buy that coat. And I will forgive myself and enjoy it and move forward if I do. But in the meantime, I will continue to remind myself that the only real freedom from want is truth and joy.

The Truth is that coat will not make my life everything I want it to be.

The Joy is the hope of someday having control over my compulsive behaviors.

And that, my friends, is how you overthink things.

The. End.