Put it back on the rack
Shopping taught me how to let go.
After a long couple weeks of class presentations and essays, I treated myself to a shopping day down East End. I haven’t gone there in ages, and I’ve been seeing all over Instagram pictures of new stores opening in the area, so I figured it was a good time to visit.
The first shop that I went to was a bright, green consignment store called Goodbyes. They’ve got a good selection of preloved vintage, modern and designer items on display, so I got to browsing. As I was going through the racks, I stumbled upon two bags that immediately caught my attention – one was a hobo handbag on sale for $50 and the other was a crossbody-messenger hybrid. For context, I’m going through a bag phase right now, particularly those two styles I mentioned.
I tried them on in the mirror but couldn’t come to a decision on the day, so I left it. I came back a couple days later, but with a friend this time for a second opinion. Unfortunately, the hobo bag just wasn’t right and the one that was – the hybrid – was not on sale and a little bit out of my budget, so with a heavy heart, I put those two back on the rack and pray that we will be reunited one day in the future.
Without realising at the time, that devastating shopping experience taught me a valuable lesson: sometimes you just have to let what isn’t meant for you go.
I know that’s hardly a lesson because well, it’s sort of common sense right, to say that we should just move on from whatever that wasn’t meant for us but accepting that isn’t always easy. Sure, if it was something that hardly meant anything to you, then maybe it wouldn’t be so hard to just say, “Oh well, that’s fine, it’s just not for me!”
What if that bag was a dream job? Or a dream home? Heck, even just a dream bag! Whatever, it might be, giving up on something you really, really want is never easy. Yet, reality will sometimes tell us – harsh as it may be – that what you want is not necessarily what you will get.
Often, that’s for the better. Not everything we desire will necessarily do us any good and rushing into it might just leave us unhappy or unsatisfied down the line. Let me give you another one of my shopping anecdotes. There was this pair of boots that I really liked and couldn’t stop thinking about, so to secure it before it was gone forever (the store barely went on sale, so I knew I had to snag it before somebody else did), I made the rash decision to buy it. I was happy when it came but a year went by, and I’ve only worn those boots once.
Not great.
No matter how desperate I was for it, it ended up doing nothing for me, except took funds out of my bank account. They just weren’t meant for me. Had I been patient and realised that I wasn’t going to like it as much without the thrill of a sale, I probably would have saved some money.
Who knew shopping could be so philosophical?