Yesterday I went shopping. Don't freak out, you knew about this. I was at the Macquarie Centre like I spoke about in my last post with my Mum. We live in Newcastle so a trip to 'the big smoke' (Sydney) can be kind of a big deal for the shopping. It was my big H&M excursion and I was thrilled. To add fuel to the fire, Forever 21 has just opened as well! If you are an Aussie, you know this is kind of a big deal; rest of the world, yes we are really that far behind!
Like a good little shopaholic I trooped around Forever 21 first thrilled with excitement, this was however after queuing up like I was at a night club waiting the bouncer to let us in the doors. Bouncer let us and I gasped and squealed in delight at the brand of clothing I hadn't seen since I left Paris, and is much the same as the clothing available at ANY OTHER CHAIN STORE marketed to the under 30's. I spent a good 40 minutes in there, and walked out empty handed. What was this madness? I didn't understand? I looked and picked up items and then left with nothing? Huh? Was I possessed at some point during the store?
These items weren't what I had in my head that I needed to add to my clothing collection. I need a maxi-skirt, LDB with a pop of colour for nights out where I don't want to wear plain black, and a Jersey dress. None of the items in Forever 21 were right! I dismissed the LBD with a pop of colour that I found because I had seen one online at H&M and obviously because half my trip to Sydney was purely based on going to H&M it was obviously going to be better!
Of we goes to H&M. Where was my LBD with a pop of colour I had found online and loved? Where was my jersey dress? Oh wait there it is, and it's see-through! Don't even get me started on the maxi-skirts available. Nothing was just right! This illusion in my head of the perfect shopping day I had set aside money for wasn't there! It didn't exist! It was all a lie! 5 hours on a train for this. For the lies?
Sadness washed over me as I thought of the wasted time I had spent looking online and flagging all of these perfect items, and the time wasted sitting on a train for half the day and the realisation that these items would not bring value to my life, or make me any happier. I saw the entire day as a waste because the 5 items I picked online weren't available. The 2 stores had probably about 10 000 items of clothing between them, and apparently they were all crap. The brought nothing to me.
Now being the shopaholic that I am I had to take myself back to the bouncers at Forever 21 a little while later because maybe the LBD with a pop of colour I had to quickly dismissed previously would actually be acceptable new I knew H&M didn't have the perfect LBD with a pop of colour that I was after. Low and behold, it was. Much torment and time could have been saved if I had given this item the time of day much earlier and we could have all gone home happy. But there was this illusion that another store held something better, something that would mean more to me, and bring more value to my life. The illusion lied.
What this experience taught me though is that this challenge is going to be freaking hard. I love to shop! I love to look online and save items and ideas, and I love getting outfit ideas off Pintrest and watching fashion hauls on YouTube. But at the end of the day, what does it bring me? Sore feet, a smaller bank balance, and a LBD with a pop of colour that I probably won't even have an occasion to wear it to for several months.
Regardless, I'm excited! Bring it on.
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