Posts tagged selfishness

I have so much crap.

 Like, tons, people. Really.

To the point that I’m not sure if I’m trying to be a million people (and cater to each of their many whims) all at once, or if I’m just so terrible at deciding what aspect of myself to showcase on any given day that I need to be prepared for any possible outcome. Or I just really have a serious addiction to consumption. But that would imply that what I purchase actually gets used. And that is definitely not the case.

I have cameras that I only use rarely now, oil paints that are still sealed in their box, and jewelry notions and projects that I sell to raise money for charity, but also to fund my spending habits, which border on that of a 14 year old with full and uninhibited access to Daddy Warbuck’s credit card.

Spending money makes me feel happy because it makes me feel like I’m improving some aspect of my life, which is why I’ve invested even more money into a personal journal which I intend to use to fully investigate and define who I truly am and where my priorities actually lie. Because let’s be honest, six different perfumes, a bonsai tree, and an iPhone say very little about me outside of I am an impulse buyer easily swayed by a desire to create the( false) impression that I lead an intellectual lifestyle; which is either totally inaccurate or embarrassingly dead on.

I used to be an artist. I wasn’t an awe-inspiring aesthetic prodigy by any means, but I had the soul of a wanderer and a talent for finding the beauty in things. In white ink braille, hardly noticeable, I have tattooed on my wrist the word “happiness” as a symbol for the saying “Happiness writes white.” Which is to say, when things are going well I write for nobody but me. But my connection and communication with other people has always been through the formation of words on pages, and I’ve never had much desire to write solely for myself. It’s not that I’ve wanted recognition, but I’ve wanted to open more of a dialogue than what currently exists about pretty much every intellectual topic ever. I have no desire to write white, and so I’ve never had much desire to seek out pretty and perfect things. The drama and lunacy of politics has always appealed to me, as has the wrecked shells of abandoned schoolhouses and  the empty rooms in vacant, decrepit homes. But in establishing myself as a functioning member of society with hopes of a career and family in the future (such stereotypical dreams) I fell prey to the rest of society’s norms.. Overspending, fashion, sex. I see other girls who survived the transition and they are beautiful. They sit at typewriters with ice tea in mason jars, and run wild with messy hair„ glow so real in their portraits, and speak in poetry. And I fight with who I’ve become, and how that should have been me. That still is me, under the make-up and diets and receipts. Under all this clutter, I know I’ve got that glow too.

But fuck. I have SO. MUCH. CRAP.

Maybe it’s time to throw some of my recklessness into the Goodwill bin…. 

Perhaps this weekend. Somebody remind me.