Sunday 18 November 2012

Who I'd like to be

All my life I've had these deep struggles with some aspects of who I am. Although I love myself (I think, I hope) I've also always been hopelessly upset with some aspects of my self, always wanting to be someone else.

Two specific examples deserve some elaboration.

I'm a hopeless shopaholic of the most ridiculous kind. I own millions of clothes and shoes, and I keep buying constantly. I like expensive things, and I also have a propensity of buying the same thing in slight variation over and over again (I think this latter is called Repetitive Shopping Syndrome or something like that, you know owning 10 million black t-shirts, grey skirts etc). I go to the shops once a week easily, also buying online at a good rate on top of that.

However, I've always wanted to be frugal, live with less, be philosophical and not care for material things. I like reading, I believe in education and I am annoyed when people judge others based on looks or other superficial things. Especially now with what is going on in Greece, I have this profound feeling of guilt as I keep spending money on shit, while my family, my friends have very very little money to live by.

My other characteristic is that I am the anti-poker face. My face always betrays what I really feel about people, situations etc. This is especially apparent in meetings much to the despair of my boss. I cannot hide my feelings, and as I often say, I have no diplomatic bone in my body. I say what I think in an awkward and un-polished way that always gets me into trouble.

On the other hand, I've always wanted to be blasĂ©. I've always loved those heroines in the cinema that show no emotions and go about looking unimpressed. My husband is the definition of unimpressed-ness and (bizarrely) I always tease him for it.

When I thought of those two things, I felt very odd. Why have I not yet managed to understand, and accept myself? I like clothes, so what? I know it's not great, and I'd really love to be able to be frugal, but what can I do? It's who I am. I can try to be good and ethical on top of that, not instead of that. These things are not mutually exclusive.

In any case, I don't know how to end this post. I've just be thinking about all these things for a while and wanted to write them down.