One Year

There has been much transition going on, so I actually just occurred to me, about three weeks ago, that my birthday has passed....thus ending my year of abstaining from shopping. It was rather odd...I went shopping with my Aunt in law and realized this. I was in one of the top three places I LOVE almost more than coffee (almost!) Anthropologie. We wandered around...tried things on...and I used some birthday money, allowance and a gift card to pick up a several great little items. I left the store, we wandered more around another new favorite place out here, The Americana @ Brand in Glendale. LOVE this place. LOVE. We ate our way through all the little vendors...drove home. And the hunger came. The ideas came. The negotiations came. I began to reason in my mind about going back to pick up a couple other items. I started to think about not how I could repurpose things that I already had into something I had seen in the store. That hunger to want to go back stuck with me for a few days actually.

I don't know if I have come to any profound conclusion to this drive and desire. Also in retrospect, what is life going to look like now outside and inside a store with no said boundaries outside of my pocketbook? My first thought was rather condemning. "Well, this means that ends shopping for you again, you can't handle it." Well, perhaps that voice has a place in this discussion. However, I don't think that is what this past year's process was about. It was beyond way more than behavioral modification. It was not only to examine the drive behind the desire to shop, to look cute, to hide behind the facade of a perfect outfit...and it was not only to learn to actually spend within my means-which I must be frank-didn't always happen either even with clothing shopping out of the picture. And to be more frank-i'm thankful about the fact that I didn't do it perfectly! (that is so me though, to do it perfectly) If I was perfect about it, would that not defeat the whole purpose? The point was to not only turn to God in those moments of need-to need something greater than the temporary fix an outfit brought to comfort me, it was to not look to shopping as my be-all, end-all comforter. It was also to go to God and seek out why it was that I didn't trust His comfort and to thus seek a replacement in the first place and how to confide to Ryan and others in my life about struggles that I have.

The journey is not over. The issue isn't solved. I will want to shop, whether at my dear Anthro. Target or Jcrew...I will also want to shop for fabric and paint, homegoods and garage sales for things for our home...so now, how do I / we walk into spending, saving, paying off, teaching ourselves and our children how to also do those very things we are now learning?

For those who have journeyed with me on this, thank you for your comments and support through this whole year. I'm actually very thankful that this journey isn't over-the problem is not solved, I have had the mentality for too long that everything needs to have a neat and complete ending. The only thing that I pray will be over or done or fixed about this whole process is that when the desire to shop comes, what I have learned will remain, intervene when I need it to, and most paramount-lead me to the one who created me to have desires, drives and loves and how He'll not only fill them-but also show me how to shop in a way that is not manic, filling and replacing his post.