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Imagine this! A small picturesque town. In it, is everyone who knows everyone. Imagine living here, in a town where your father knows the baker, the banker, the grocer, the chemist and the department store owner. I was the daughter of one such father in one such town, a father who took his family out shopping on special occasions, celebratory days and pay-days. The clothing store though not eclectic in its possessions, was nothing short of a fairyland to me. The store owner who quite conspicuously was also the salesperson, took out attractive boxes of colorful frocks as I imagined away what I would look like in each one of them. My disposition has always been to imagine and to dream and even to this day, I remember what I always wished for when I was a small, scrawny young one! I wished for a house filled with frocks, so I would have a new frock to wear everyday.

Fast-Forward 15-20 years, the dream burns with such keenness that I might as well live in a frock shaped house(only it’s not a frock this time, it might as well be a velvety jumpsuit! I am crazy about anything velvety these days!). As a rule, I normally do not buy anything at full price, but the doorbuster deals pop up ever-so-often that I am shopping almost all year round! Like a boat which has been sailing rudderless in the wild sea, I have been busy this past week, so overwhelmed by the Cyber Week sales, that it drove me mad.

The best idea would have been to have an elaborate plan. To know what to buy, what your wardrobe lacked, what colors to choose, where to go first, how much time to spend at each store. But no, that was simply not to be. You know how you feel when you are famished and crave for your favorite food. But alas, when you are served that food hot and nice, you overeat and all you want to do is throw up? That’s exactly how I am feeling!

So I shopped! I shopped Monday, followed by Tuesday, then Wednesday and ended it Thursday. Shopping alights each one of my senses. It makes me happy, it keeps me content, but the downside is, the feeling lasts only a day. The aftermath of this is a jolt so hard, it almost feels like an excruciating torment. You are mortified the next morning at the number of dresses you bought, you are embarrassed by the delivery truck which makes a stop at your doorstep almost everyday(I mean, what will the delivery man think?), you are outraged by the number of hangers you keep buying at Target and you are ashamed of your hubby’s closet space which keeps shrinking while your own grows enormously large! Phew! What’s happening?

After a week of constantly finding the best deals online, ordering the best outfits, having them delivered, realizing half of them fit wrong, running by the store to have them exchanged, I came to a bitter conclusion. This is crazy and this has got to stop. It wasn’t easy accepting I was wrong. It’s not what I spend(the damned deals are so good that you don’t really spend a lot), but it’s accepting that you don’t need clothes to make you feel good about yourself. I made this confession after an hour of tossing and turning in bed, I confessed to hubby how I felt and how I had deleted each one of the shopping apps on my phone(yeah, I did!). I did get a soothing response(soothing if I choose to ignore the soft chuckle I heard first!). As penance to the damage done, I declared I would only spend time on reading now, almost forgetting books cost money too! So I reckon the only way out of this mess is to borrow books from the nearby library. And you need not feel sorry for me, for as someone once said, It is not so bad to be lost in a fog, for when land comes into view again, you will apprecaite it with a keenness that is denied to those who know nothing but the safety of the shore!