A Shopper's Repentance

The boxes are unpacked. Well, I should clarify. I unpacked the cardboard boxes and re-packed the items into nice plastic ones with labels. A new layer of boxes now adorns my mother's garage, neatly stacked and organized for maximum accessibility.

This whole moving thing has made me realize a lot of things. One of those is that I am a clotheshorse. I condensed my important belongings from my one bedroom apartment into 12 plastic containers, 4 small cardboard boxes and an assortment of miscellaneous items tightly packed in Jen's basement. Out of the 12 plastic containers, 11 of them are shoes, purses, tops, pants, dresses, sweaters or sweatshirts. I think I could easily wear a new outfit every day for a year without repeating.

The irony is that it seems every time I look in my closet I have absolutely nothing to wear. Why is that? It's not like I've changed dress sizes much over the past 5 years and most of what I buy wouldn't be considered "trendy." I try to stick to the basics, the classics. And yet, I always have a desire to walk into a store, try something on, and justify why I need it. "I don't have a cardigan with POCKETS in this color." Or, "My black flats have silver on the buckle, so I need a pair to go with GOLD jewelry." It's really quite disgusting when you're faced with the flat truth that you have an addiction.

Is there a 12 step program for this? Maybe it would go something like this.

Step 1 - Admit that you are powerless to walking past a store with a cute window display and cannot stop yourself from going in and at least trying something on.

Step 2 - Come to believe that there is a power greater than yourself who can grab you by the arms and shake you vigorously every time you reach a cash register and question "Do you really NEED this?"

Step 3 - Make a decision to turn your will into willpower and refrain from using the credit card with a really high limit.

Step 4 - Make a searching and fearless inventory... of our CLOSET, so as not to duplicate purchases.

Step 5 - Admit to everyone around you that you are a shopaholic (as done via blog post).

Step 6 - Have god, or in this instance, the Salvation Army, remove all of these surplus items from said closet.

Step 7 - Stop shopping.

Step 8 - Make a list of people to make amends with, including sales girl at Nordstrom that you asked to get you 6 different dresses in 3 different sizes and then didn't buy any of them, or fellow shopper who you carelessly pushed aside so you could snag the last clearance pair of Marc Jacobs shades, and so on and so forth.

Step 9 - Make amends with these people, if you can find them. If not, make amends via blog post.

Step 10 - Continue to take personal inventory of your closet and vigilantly refrain from adding to it, despite major temptations like Macy's 4th of July sale, etc.

Step 11 - Constantly pray to god, or follow Suze Orman's Twitter posts, in order to attain knowledge and power so as to not be tempted by your addiction.

Step 12 - Carry this message to other addicts (as done via blog post).

Wow. I feel much better already. I guess this 12 step stuff really works. Now onto other things...

I wonder how late Loehman's is open?