Saturday, March 17, 2007

everything old is new again

I am sitting here wearing my new old shoes. I have a basket that I used to keep shoes in. I haven't looked in it for quite a while - well, yesterday I did and found a couple of pairs of great shoes that I had forgotten about. I mean completely forgotten - I had forgotten I even owned them.

Well, I feel like I have scored big time, I am now wearing them (very comfortable they are too, and just the sort of shoes I like - I am obviously a woman of taste and discretion). But it has made me wonder - how come I could forget that I ever owned these shoes? How come I could see the basket every day and not look in it for a couple of years ... How did I ever get so blase about possessions?

Probably because I have too much, and it is just too easy to get more.

Anyway, I am happy to report that the only books I have bought have been second hand. I have not bought any clothes or CDs or other stuff. Feeling pretty good about it all really, and I have new old shoes!

1 comment:

Alison Peters said...

Hi all,

Donna, my compacting mate, used to wonder what would happen when we limited ourselves to buying only food. Would we become obsessed by food because it was our only outlet for possessing stuff?

That hasn't happened to me. Instead, I have found that it is exactly as you say. I am suddenly seeing the things I already have in a new light. Old shoes, old clothes, even plastic bottles seem more useful and usable than before when I treated them as disposable.

So in a way I am more materialistic now, in that the things I already have, I now value much more. I look after them better. 'I see them as long term prospects.'

I'm similarly uncomfortable with how little I valued the privilage I once enjoyed- consuming without regard for anything much except the cost.