What You Won't Have

In another tab open in my browser is a pair of shoes in an online shopping cart. The shoes tab has been open for several months. I'll occasionally refresh it, just to see if the shoes are still there. So far, they are. I haven't bought the shoes; if things go to plan, I'll never buy the shoes.

The shoes are not inordinately expensive and I could afford them, if by afford I mean I could charge them to my credit card and probably pay it off in a month, leaving me with nothing moved to savings for yet another month in a row. But I'm trying hard not to buy them out of a slightly different principle: I want them but I want to not want them; or no, maybe I want them but I want to want them without needing to have them. 

It's okay to desire to have things. But it's a lifelong struggle to become comfortable with both having a desire and knowing it will never be fulfilled. You're not getting the shoes because you've wanted them too much, I'm trying to tell myself. You've become obsessed with having these shoes, daily going through a ritual of checking your bank balance and trying to rationalize being able to afford them. You can't have them; I won't let you have them.

Today I went to the groccery store and impulse bought a water bottle for way too much. When I got home I looked it up on amazon, where it was listed for $10 less than I spent. See, if you hadn't bought that bottle, you could have had the shoes, my inner critic said. What I'm struggling with is so much more than the $70 shoes, though. I'm struggling with wanting to not want. I want to be able to go more than a few hours without wanting to buy something, to own something that, in a few months, when I have to clean around it in my tiny apartment, I'll curse ever having bought. 

So for tonight at least the tab with the shoes will remain open, shoes un-bought. But tomorrow will be another battle between a toxic consumer culture, natural human desire and willpower. A toxic culture where the things you want can be yours now, tomorrow, by the end of the week, brought to your door for a price we call free because we don't know just how much it actually costs us, emotionally and environmentally.