A resolution...
I think I just had a revelation. Today has been divided between knitting, revising for my media law exam, and reading my new copy of Bust. This has been a bit of problem, because no where near enough of that time has been spent on the exam revision part, and the exam is tomorrow. Oops.
The questions that always plague me during a bout of procrastination have been whirling around my empty flat. Why do I leave everything to the last minute? Why can't I motivate myself? Why do I waste so much time doing nothing? This morphed into the usual pre-deadline self-hatred. Why do I spend money I don't have on things I don't need? Why, when I have a wardrobe that literally wont close, do I still buy new clothes on regular basis? Why, if left to my own devices, would I spend myself into bankruptcy with nothing much more than a box of barely worn, ill-fitting Primark shoes to show for it?
And I got to thinking, maybe all these things are symptoms of the one problem? There is something wrong with me. I'm sick. I need new things to feel happy, and when it comes to attaining my goals I am suddenly filled with lethargy. Then I punish myself, either by not eating for days, or through some other, more imaginative form of self-discipline, after which I console myself with something new. Something I don't need and can't afford. And then I punish myself, and the cycle starts again.
The fact that I am obviously addicted to buying things is obvious. I can control it to a certain extent- I buy things then feel guilty and return them, and sometimes I deliberately go, by myself, to a cheap shop like H&M or Primark and allow myself to buy one item, to get my fix without breaking the bank. But it occurs to me that this is a ridiculous way to behave. If it were alcohol that I was craving like this, I would have identified my behaviour as a serious problem a long time ago, but because it's shopping, and women with an addiction to shopping is normalised and made light of, I hadn't really twigged until now.
I'm hardly in debt up to my eyeballs with several maxed out credit cards hiding in the recesses of my wallet, but I can point to around £300 at least of unwarranted expenditure in my recent statements. And for someone currently sans-income, living off loans until May, this is unnacceptable, stupid, and verging on ridiculous.
I propose, therefore to kick the habit. I am going to go cold turkey on my most extravagent form of purchases: clothes.
Oh God. I'm dithering here at the computer now. The very prospect of stopping buying clothes fills me with dread. Ugh, which in turn fills me with revulsion. I clearly need to break this habit as soon as possible.
How long for? I want to say a year. I want to vow not to buy another item of clothing for a year, but my head is literally filling with images of pretty summer dresses that I look forward to all summer.
How sad is that?
Okay, no, a year will be too hard to maintain. Like a New Years Resolution that never gets past March. It's overreaching, and it seems like forever, so for starters I'm going to say three months to try and avoid feeling too defeatist about my chances. Considering I can't usually get through a week without buying something, this should be challenge enough.
Here's the vow, then. As the internet is my witness, I will not buy an item of clothing or footwear or jewellery until the 13th of July. Until then, I will make do with my extensive wardrobe. If the need arises, I will mend clothes rather than replace them, I will alter clothes that no longer fit, and I will make clothes if really necessary. I will borrow, and I will draft in the help of friends with sewing machines to make sure I stick to this resolution. I will avoid clothes shops as places of temptation with no real merit, and I use the time I would usually spend in them going through my wardrobe and removing things that I really will never wear or have never worn and getting rid of them.
This, my friends, is day zero.
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scoobygang63) wrote,
