You Are Not Your Things

You are not your things.


This is been a somewhat difficult concept for me to grasp. Growing up not so rich, not so poor, our house was always fettered by bric-a-brac and knickknacks and things that I thought made the home feel cozy. As an adult, I see magazines full of museumlike homes, uncluttered by the nuances of tourist travels, dollar store gifts, impulse buys, and oddities picked up along the way. These are the homes that my ex-boyfriend wanted. This is not the home that I was raised in. I've been coming to terms with the reason WHY there was such a disparity between the "high-end" homes on HGTV that I felt often lacked charm and human touch and those that I fell burdened beneath hundreds of tchotchkes. 

Tis true that media sells largely to 19-24 year-olds who yearn for adulthood, buttressed by Windows treatments and white-washed driftwood headboards. the latest palette of sea-gray swatches, and mixed naval-inspired patterns to make whatever was hip episode years ago in design feel "fresh" again. Retro vintage hip modern. With muted "tomato and avocado" now called "blood orange and olive" to erase the hatred of the our parents' design choices or whatever elder generation decorated roof to shag carpet, feeling as hip and happy as the summer's day.

And now we're onto antlers painted gold and all the neutral colors. Good God. All the antlers and owls. What IS it with wildlife?!?And no longer gold but copper. Don't forget silver was before gold. And bronze before that. Soon brushed bronze will be back and probably even nickel and brass at some point in the next 15 years. Nothing is more valuable than an epic time stamp on the value of your ideas.

To buy. Make. Sell. Tear down. Repeat.

But never shown are the 34-year-olds, crippled by tens of thousands of dollars of student loans, making less than they made out of undergraduate now they are at Masters level, who are in the process of disowning 90% of their homes for tinier parcels of plots, all to start anew. This is my story. Sorting through piles and piles of....THINGS. Decor, crafts, books, hobbies, bits and bobs of what I thought made life comfortable.

This isn't the American life that I was led to believe in. But here am ... Smack dab in the middle of yet another existential crisis on the heels of a failed relationship.

I've always understood the beast that was the American nightmare--misled to place emphasis on the scurrying of minds burdened by the acceptance of one's mortality. It is easy to forget how much intangible, non-purchased things matter and how little everything from your nearest store matters when you're wrapped up in some Real Housewife fighting another drunken housewife about forgetting to invite her to a birthday party. When time is spent arguing semantics instead of taking action to ensure justice, equality, and fairness is dealt to all persons. Because that is the whole jig, right?

It's long been time for an American uprising, but many of us, myself included, were too busy worrying about which Le Creuset color of Dutch oven to purchase. (My answer: whichever is on sale and a knock off.) Now people complacent with selecting from 50 finishes of toilet paper holders are having to remove their noses from the latest Martha Stewart to engage in self-reflection of a deeper sort....specifically those OUTSIDE themselves.

Because every few decades, the people at the bottom get grumpy and hungry. 

We Americans are in the business of selling the idea of a thing . The whole idea behind everything is to find comfort in a uncomfortable world---I mean we are so restless about this hunger for "comfortable living" that silence forms a constant ick in our gut. Because in silence we hear doubts--those sneaking suspicions that we aren't genuine or truly accepted and loved and revered until we buy that 2000 square foot house in the burbs with 2.4 kids, two cars, and the whole Gap department in our closets and can keep up with those people on Facebook who appear to be Having It All. The times of their lives. 

No struggle. No "I wonder if I can afford this indulgence of McDonald's or if it'll default my bank account." Nope. These people are Winning. They have posted the most adorable engagement photos. He's even willing to hold some stupid fucking chalkboard that says some stupid fucking thing for her in some fucking field off a highway that you can't see behind the photographer at a rest stop.

And then the wedding pictures. Oh god. The fucking wedding pictures are 10X better/worse. And then the ultrasound pics and the pics of the babies in month-labeled onesies. Next will be Ann Taylor and a set of golf clubs. Private school for the kids. Lacrosse for the boy, debate for the daughter. Ivy League Colleges. A 9-5 job with your dad's buddy's office. Your very own car. A condo and a drinking habit. Some strippers when you get a little wild. A DUI wiped clean because you're white and a stock broker. And boom.

40. Same sad office. Nice suits. No merit or power to fight the spinning of the neverending wheel. Because that's the thing about life. It's all of everything you can make it.
You most likely will make within 15% of your parents' incomes. If you're lucky, that'll be 15% higher. And you still end up kicking the bucket someday. 

So you make the "most" of it today. And publicize it on social media and hope that everyone agrees that you are the most beautiful, intelligent, talented person they know. Because if not....well then, fuck. You must have done something wrong to deserve any dislike. 

And being dislikes is apparently the worst thing in the world? Well, next to picking the wrong shade of sea shell blue or whatever for your powder room. 

So we flip-flop between caring about All The Things and the Things That Own Us. Back and forth, we see-saw. 

And right now I've tipped the scales back toward hating all the Things That Own Me and back toward unfettering my living. Because FUCK.... all I ever wanted was a goddamn white-washed driftwood headboard. And a warm body in my bed to wake up and fall asleep next to. And a goddamn dish of rocks stolen from places my heart shrank or grew, morphed a bit that day.

You are not your things. Your things don't define you. 

Your grit, your will, your talent, your skill, your intuition...those are the things that do.