In 2018:
-Buy less, buy quality.
-Learn to prolong the life of goods.
-Curate my closet & develop my personal style.
-Learn to let go of the unnecessary.
-Work on me: physically, intimately and spiritually.
-Learn to cook like my momma.
-Travel in both story and place.
-Live in the present.
After my last post, I thought a lot about what I want to accomplish
this new year and this overwhelming feeling kept intruding with my ability to
write down a list because I didn’t want to set myself up for failure. Yet, when I developed my last post I realized
that the moments that made my year so special were the moments that highlighted
my strengths. There’s this new movement
of working on one’s strengths instead of focusing on our weaknesses. I like the optimism of this new growth
technique because it aligns with my way of thinking…
Last week I was out thrifting when I came across an object that I had
been wanting for years. I knew that it
was just a waiting game before these wellies would be mine for a steal. Before I describe my score, I want to remark
that one of my fashion crushes is the Duchess of Cambridge. A few years ago I saw her in a magazine
wearing the most exquisite wellies and I knew that I had to own a pair just
like them. I live in Southern California
where our raining season is usually less than a couple of weeks, so the purchase
of a pair of high-end rubber boots was just unreasonable. I decided to wait, while I did scour eBay
and was almost tempted to buy them for half the price, I waited. Then last Saturday, as I arrived to Goodwill
the salesperson was pulling out a cart of new inventory and on top were a pair
of the classic Hunter boots I had been wanting since seeing that image of
Princess Kate. I ran and grabbed them
thinking they weren’t my size, but I looked and the number confirmed that they
were indeed for me! Still distrustful, I
thought the calf probably won’t fit because boots are a tricky item for plus
size women. Conquering my fears of disappointment
I tried them on and as if I were Cinderella and the wellies my glass slipper
they fit perfectly! I was as ecstatic as
if I had found my prince charming, but they weren’t priced. I looked all over for a tag and nothing, no
mark with permanent marker on the sole, no sticker on the inside. This is too good to be true I thought,
because usually if it’s a quality item they don’t sale it without a price tag
they’ll just send it back for repricing.
Preparing for a possible broken heart I went to pay for them. To the sales lady they were nothing, but a
black pair of rubber boots and she said the nicest number I have ever heard in
my life $9.99. I got them for less than
ten percent of the actual going prize and it rained this week so I have already
wore them twice!
I got home and I cleaned them still smiling with delight and that’s
when a little wisdom fell in my brain. I
am really good at thrifting! To which
the next must also be said- hoarding runs in my family. Two of my aunts have this illness and no
matter how much we’ve tried to help them they live buried in stuff. I do have an eBay store that I do as a side green-hobby
so I do visit the thrift at least once a week and I have begun accumulating things
that are in the process of getting flipped or sold. Yet, as I polished my boots I thought
hoarding could become my problem because I have a weakness for things with
history and for scoring deals. Sometimes
the things I buy are like little inanimate objects with souls, “save me from
the landfill,” they keep repeating and I succumb to their power like a sailor
to the sounds of a mermaid. I realized
when I held my Hunters that I must tie myself to the mast like Odysseus and
only bring home the items that make me as crazy happy as finding my perfect
wellies did. And that’s when I was able
to come up with the perfect goals for 2018.
The list of eight (above) combines my strengths and pushes me to be
better. I am already trying to live by
my octave, but I need a lot of progress to perfect each of them and the fact
that these areas don’t expire on January 2019 means that I won’t fail. I just need to focus on a little progress and
for a woman with a fulltime job and busy schedule this sounds doable. I am tired of making resolutions for the sake
of making resolutions, I want to fill my life both outwardly and innerly with
quality. I am passionate of decreasing
my carbon footprint of living mostly on second hand items, of not succumbing to
the commercialized culture, but I have a long way to go. Just like I have a long way to go on other
areas of my life that equally mean something to me and this new year I want to
continue trying to be better at looking at my passions and putting them to
work. I think that’s what resolutions
are about, they are not ways of making us feel like failures because we couldn’t
accomplish them in a span of a year. They are new
beginnings that help us to never give up on ourselves, but to strive each day to
be just a little better than we were yesterday.
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