Month Three: An outsider looking in

Finding my place in a world of shoppers evokes a whole new feeling for me. It’s foreign and yet feels peaceful at the same time. I’m surprised at how much I've been enjoying it. It has been three months since I started my fashion fast and I’m feeling a sense of consistent balance in my life. I wonder what life will be like when it’s all over? I’m hoping I’m not one of those people who needs to live in extremes in order to feel alive. Meaning, either never shopping or always shopping. I really would like to work toward being able to enter a store without the high and excitement that shopping can evoke in me sometimes. In watching others participate in the shopping world, I'm observing that I'm not the only one who it provides a varied set of excited emotions.

I spent this past weekend in Miami with 12 other women for a bachelorette party for a close friend. I loved listening to the conversations around me about what outfits people were going to where, who brought what and who needed to run out and quickly buy shoes as they didn’t have the right ones with them. One friend even shared that she ran to the mall the night before the trip in order to find something new to pack for the weekend. She said she was trying on a top in the dressing room when the lights went out because the store was closing. I smiled as she told me this story, as back in the day, that would have been me.

I felt a renewed sense of peace and stability sitting amongst my beautiful lady friends and listening to their shopping stories. My favorite was the one told by Miss S about the fur vest that cost close to a thousand dollars that she recently purchased. She said it was the last one in the store and due to the big fuss that the sales people made about how great she looked in it, she decided that she couldn't pass it up. She shared that she was struggling with a bit of buyers remorse because it was a final sale and she couldn't return it. When I asked her why she decided to buy it, she stated that it made her feel good. Don’t get me wrong, I know exactly what she is talking about and can relate wholeheartedly. I am enjoying though, the lack of heightened emotions and frenzy that shopping can stir even in the calmest of people. I'm also finding ways to feel good just by observing. I'm also keenly aware that "I too" have been on the other side and can easily fall back to that place of frenzied shopping.

What surprised me most this weekend were the comments I received from my friends. Many of them were aware that I am on a fashion fast and were surprised that I was able to pull off my weekend outfits with clothes they had never seen before. "Had I shopped?" No, I told them, I just made due with what I had…and I realize, I have enough! You see, that is what this fast is teaching me. I don’t need to run out to the store for every special event that comes my way. I just need to look inside, that is, inside my closet. I may be an outsider looking in at my friends and the people around me who are “healthfully” shopping, but I don’t need to be an outsider to my very own closet!