Today’s writing playlist: saudade, saudade by MARO.
I fantasize about being the kind of person who wears nice underwear. Matching underwear. The kind that always fits. The kind without holes or rips. Certainly not the kind that languishes at the back of your drawer until laundry day, when you’re suddenly left with no choice but to wear a thong that hasn’t fit you since college, the one that rolls down over your stomach and rides up your ass and leaves you feeling somehow worse than if you were wearing nothing at all, a constant, nagging pinch telling you that you could be doing so much better than this.
I fantasize about being the kind of person who opens their drawer and never has to digs past lingerie with the tags still on because they aren’t confident enough to wear it and mismatched socks that they should throw out but are keeping because the other sock will probably show up eventually, right? Probably. It has to be around here somewhere.
I fantasize about the person who opens their drawer and finds exactly what they need, the perfect seamless thong, a thousand of them, a million of them, because the person I want to be never runs out of underwear and then feels stressed out over something as mundane as underwear, for Christ’s sake. Because if I didn’t feel stressed over underwear, then the possibilities are endless, right? Then I can be all the other better versions of me that I want to be. So I buy more underwear. I spend $100 here, $100 there. And though I don’t say it, I don’t admit it, I don’t speak it out loud because it sounds just as silly as it is, there is a part of me that thinks this is it. This is the purchase that will make me the kind of person I want to be. The person who wears nice underwear, who is better than I am right now. It’s not me — but it almost is.
And sure, it’s just underwear. It’s just one purchase in a long string of purchases, both necessary and unnecessary, that make up a life, a credit card balance, a budget or lack thereof. But it feels like more. Because I can feel that person, too, that version of me. She’s right there, just around the corner of a few more purchases. Just a few more things and I will be the kind of person with matching, nice underwear. The kind of person who drinks their water and applies neck cream every night and doesn’t pour themselves a glass of wine on a Thursday just because it’s the first day where it really feels like spring. I will be the kind of person who will be satisfied with eating only a single serving size of pasta even though it feels ridiculously wrong, like the person making up these nutritional guidelines is a borrower, or Gwyneth Paltrow (it’s probably Gwyneth). I will be the kind of person who drinks tea at night and never feels the urge to zone out in the aisle of a Target, or during a 12-hour Real Housewives marathon. On the surface, yeah, it’s just underwear, just a water bottle, just a pair of silk pajamas that I will eventually stop wearing because oversized T-shirts are just as comfortable. Just a dress that would look perfect on vacation or, more realistically, on Instagram, just a new foundation, just a new journal, a new pen, a new book, but it’s more than that, too. It always is. It’s building the picture of who I’m going to be, who I deserve to be. It’s looking in the mirror and seeing a person who’s full of holes, full of things to fix.
When we did a Q&A episode on the podcast last week, we had a few people ask about the “de-influencing trend,” and I had mixed thoughts on the subject. I share them in the podcast episode, but the question stuck in my brain for a while after we recorded. Eventually, I realized it was because I felt, maybe unsurprisingly, a little weird about talking about de-influencing when I’m an “influencer” myself. I like sharing the things I love. I am happy to answer questions about where I bought something if I love that something. I do my best to be honest and authentic in what I share. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like making some money from sharing those things. But it’s not as simple as that, either. Because I also know what it feels like to start to believe that a pair of underwear or a water bottle or a supplement will suddenly bring you one step closer to being the person you want to be. I know what it feels like to be constantly spinning your wheels, constantly trying out new things and never feeling like it’s getting you to the place you want to be, and concluding that you’re the problem. I know what it feels to see every purchase as building who you want to be, or deserve to be. Of never feeling like that person is you at all, but instead somewhere just out of reach. Just around the corner.
My point is this: If you feel like you can’t keep up with the urge to keep buying things, or you can’t seem to figure out why that new water bottle or suitcase or journal isn’t make your life better, I get it. I feel it too. This isn’t to say I’m done sharing or shopping or following influencers myself. I still want to share things I love and I still enjoy watching other people share the things they love, the things that make life a little easier or more fun or more colorful. Hell, I still enjoy things in general. I like colorful, weird little objects. Potentially haunted antique picture frames. My water bottle that’s the size of a small infant. An iced latte in a perfectly branded to-go cup. Surrounding myself with more books than it is humanly possible to read in a lifetime. A new dress that makes me feel unstoppable. But do I need it? Any of it? No. Will it change me or make me better? No.
The best things about you and me are always going to be right there, solid and true, same as they always have been. No product, no item, and no purchase is going to change any of it, no matter how great anyone says it is (and that includes me). And the worst parts of us? The parts we think are bad and shameful and lazy and not quite as good as they could be? Well, maybe it’s time we consider whether those parts really matter that much at all. We can all say that those people who seemingly have it “more together” than us — the people with perfectly-organized underwear drawers and perfect skin and a borderline scary commitment to daily collagen supplements and green juice aren’t better people than we are, aren’t smarter or stronger or braver or better, but it’s another thing to really believe it. To know it. To feel it.
One more thing: If you’re like me, and maybe there’s part of the ‘deinfluencing’ trend that makes you feel ashamed, guilty, or silly, know that you’re not alone there, either. If there’s part of you that feels like kicking yourself because for a second you actually thought that a pair of underwear or a water bottle or an exercise machine was suddenly going to make you a different, better person, I’m also here to remind you that that feeling comes from the same place that caused you to buy the thing in the first place. If you’re sitting here imagining a better version of you that buys less shit… well, doesn’t that sound familiar? It’s not about the stuff, it’s about how we feel about ourselves. How much grace we give ourselves. It’s about believing we deserve a version of life in which we’re catering to us right now more than we are to Almost Us, the one who’s just out of reach. Personally, I’m sick of Almost Olivia. She’s annoying. And cranky. And keeps insisting that quitting dairy (or was it sugar?) is the thing that’s finally going to change my life. She’s boring and shallow and one-note. She’s never happy, and she’s always scared. She doesn’t know what the hell she’s taking about, and she certainly doesn’t know me.
These days, I’m still figuring it all out. Influencing. Deinfluencing. Creating. Existing. Living. The things I need versus the things I want versus the things I buy anyway. I guess we all are. But the more I focus on what I know to be true about myself, the things I love about myself at the core of who I am, the less I feel the need to keep moving, keep going, keep spinning my wheels. The less curious I am about who’s right around the corner, and the more content I am to stay right where I am.
This month, a portion of subscriber proceeds will go toward PROJECT HOPE’s fund for humanitarian relief after the earthquake in Turkey and Syria.
This is such beautifully written expression of a feeling I also know all too well.
I'm currently planning a solo three day, mid-week trip to visit my sister next month in Chicago the week after the most hellish part of my work year wraps up. I will probably post up at a coffee shop during the days (because I still have to work, and so does she) and we'll get wine and go out for dinner, but I have bought new luggage, rented cold-weather clothes, and new pajamas, AND FOR WHAT?! I'll almost surely end up in leggings and sweatshirts all the days, but my brain is obsessing on being Prepared yet Carefree Grown-Up Sarah and I am... not that? I will never be that? (I am a 37 year old married lady with a 19 and 17 year old. I literally AM the grown up!? But my brain just doesn't register it at all.)
God I felt this in my soul.