As, perhaps, each of us. Another story from blogger Janet Bertholus is about indestructible female optimism.
Janet Bartolus is a blogger whose website is theobserversvoice.com.
I easily part with things. I’m the kind of person who doesn’t hesitate to get rid of products and end relationships before they expire. So at first I just laughed when my friend Eva took out another book called “Radically changing your life the magic of cleaning – the Japanese art of something there” and began to quote it.
Then she told me: “I was cleaning out my closet yesterday – and you know what I realized? I buy things for a life that I never live.”
It’s impossible!
And this is true.
Who among us has not brought home a bright green jacket, a transparent blouse and something with a fringe, because he clearly saw himself happy in them?
“God, how does this suit her,” I say to myself and to no one in particular, buying leather pants that are too tight for me and the most beautiful lingerie for that girl in my imagination who lives my imaginary life.. I fight the temptation to buy these things for this girl every time I go on sale.
Like Eve, I have a formal business suit hanging in my closet (I live in California and work from home), and in a separate box, tied with a ribbon, I have the thinnest leopard-print silk robe folded to throw it over my shoulders during yachting time.
I ended up donating the businesswoman suit to Dress for Success, an organization that rents out clothes to women who go to job interviews and don’t have any money. But the leopard robe is still waiting for its sea sunset.
I have spices for recipes that I will never cook.
But seriously.
I have spices for recipes that I will never cook. Never. Do you want to know why? Because the last time I opened this recipe book, I cried. It might as well have been written in Chinese.
In order to bring all these ingredients together, I will have to part with the accumulations of my whole life. But nevertheless, I have several jars of sauces with exotic names.
Those magical ingredients for these simple recipes, not to mention the handmade napkins and tablecloths, candles and shakers I bought, were for the cocktail parties and dinners I was going to throw for all my friends.
Parties in my real life are delicately served grilled meats. Graceful serving means we use plastic rather than paper plates and clear rather than white disposable cups. I call this style casual chic.
What kind of life do we invest ourselves in – imaginary or the one we live?
For years, like Eva and I’m sure like some of you, I’ve been buying things for a life I’ve never lived.
…I figured it out, but old habits die slowly. And today at the sale at the Wasteland (Big Wasteland) supermarket, I again tried to fight my demons.
They whispered to me that I should buy ankle-length white Narciso Rodrigues trousers and a thin cashmere sweater with leather inserts to write my new book in.
And I look to my husband for support. He is standing next to me in a jacket, jeans and a white T-shirt, and I know for sure that he has a few more pairs of jeans and white T-shirts in his wardrobe.
So what kind of life do we invest ourselves in – the one we imagine or the one we live?