Although, I would never consider myself to be a materialistic person, something has occured to me recently:
Although I'm not spending alot on things, I'm buying things alot.
Yeah, I buy my furniture on craigslist and alot of my clothes at trendy little vintage stores. But the point is that I want things that keep up the pretty picture of what I want my bohemian life to look like. I want the newest i*pod compatible vinyl player, indian print tapestries at west elm. I want oversized couches and dark wood coffee tables.
But is it really that I want all of these things... or do I just want the lifestyle that these things evoke? I love beautiful things, and I love pretty clothes. But the older I get, the more I come to accept that I might get these things over alot of time (and alot of hard work, busting it out at Starbucks), but what I really want is nights with friends around my Ikea Forhoja kitchen table. I want to spend late nights on my patio, listening to Van Morrison on my Ion portable PA system for i*pod. I want to go to pilates class , listening to my purple Zumreed headphones. But, who am I kidding? I'm a barista! It's comforting to realize that it's really the beautiful lifestyle that I crave versus the beautiful things. I can't pretend that it wouldn't all be a nice add-on, but for years I've bought and bought and bought, and it hasn't solved anything for me in a positive way. It's just made me worried about money, worried about things that are not worth being worried about. Why be worried when I can be spending those nights on patios... complete with good friends and good coffee and good music?
It is not that my life is not beautiful right now. It is. It is just that so much of my time is spent in a little bit of a fog. Waking up before 6:30am, 6 days a week is rough. But there are things that I signed up for when I took the prideful, "I can do it on my own" attitude, saying that I would support myself all on my own. My parents must have just smiled to themselves, when I was 18 and saying that I could move out, making $7 an hour at an indepedent coffee shop. Man, how far I have come!
I am learning to let go... and compartmentalize my life. For a long time, I was so concerned with this betterment of my life (my life, my life, me, me, me.... this was a very self centered, self serving time of my life), that I couldn't even enjoy the time that I spent with people that I loved and cared about. I couldn't even relax to read or watch a movie. I was just thinking about how I could pick up more and more hours at work. How I could get to this point and this point... this point where my life was going to be solved!
But my life is solved. And for the first time, I can let go and enjoy. I can watch a movie with my boyfriend, and truly not want to be anywhere else then exactly where I am at that time. I can actually stop and enjoy my job. Enjoy being with my co-workers and talking to my regulars. I can go to dinner with my girlfriends and eat stuffed crab legs and not stress out about how many sessions of pilates I'm going to need to do to make up for it.
Sleep in peace when the day is done
And this old world is a new world
And a bold world
For me
Stars when you shine, you know how I feel
Scent of the pine, you know how I feel
Freedom is mine, and I know how I feel
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So much truth in here...If we truly stopped and thought about WHY we want stuff, we could truly discover what it is we really want. And usually it's not the stuff. And then we realize, we can have what we really want without making a single purchase, but by simply opening up our eyes to the beauty that's right there.
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