I ran out this morning to grab a cup of coffee from down the street. I returned from this quick coffee run with a new rug, a standing lamp, and a wall clock.
Here's the honest truth: I seem to have developed a full on shopping addiction since you died. I'm not blaming you, just noting that the two are correlated. It started with redecorating the apartment as a nesting reaction to losing you. The project was a really good one to dive into, something for me, Mom, and Megan to focus on together. Very early on in the process, I felt I was craving online shopping the way an addict craves a fix. Getting lost in black holes of internet hours, clicking on rug after rug after rug. It was numbing behavior, I know enough to see that. But, I reasoned, I just went through a massively traumatic experience, I am grieving, I am doing my best to process the events and feel the pain, to work through it, but no one is able to go through things like this without a certain degree of numbing. Anyone who says they are is fooling themselves. Reese Witherspoon (not her, really, but the character she played in Wild) went on a crazy heroin and sex addicted spree for years after her mother died, then she walked across the country to combat that sort of behavior.
Clicking on endless rugs, couches, vintage opera glasses, and clocks, driving back and forth to the outlets on eastern Long Island countless times, spending a bit more than I should, and making endless trips up and down the stairs with new and discarded furniture is surely better numbing behavior than unsafe sex and heroin, right? So what if I stayed up until 2am last night because I couldn't stop searching online for the perfect wall clock. This is what I keep telling myself. And, this is what I was telling myself as I struggled down the street with all my (quite heavy) new loot today.
Because here's the other thing I have discovered. For some reason, I really and truly believe that if you are spending money at Target or some other discount store, or if you buy something that is discounted by a large percentage, then you are not actually spending money. All my loot came from Target today. I knew I wanted the lamp, which is why I went there. The clock came as a super cheap temp clock for me to put on the wall until I could afford to get the one that I've been lusting after in Williamsburg that I definitely can't afford right now. And the rug the same. I figured I'd try it out for size and then return it, buy the one online that I really like. But, really, all this stuff adds up to actual money. And for some reason I can't seem to understand that. Discount or not, it hits your credit card in the same way.
But, I digress. Walking down the street, I had to keep switching the hand that was holding the plastic handles taped onto the box that held the jumbo stainless architect's lamp. It really was quite heavy. Every twenty feet or so I had to stop, take a break, stretch out my aching hand, and switch to the other still aching hand. It took me about thirty minutes to walk the ten minutes from Target back to my house. And most of that time was spent going over the above justification in my head -- you're not doing heroin, it's okay if you're a little bit addicted to shopping right now, this is better than sex addiction, what if you became an alcoholic instead, this should be easier to quit eventually than meth, and on and on.
I reached my apartment building and fought to open up the gate to the outside stairs while still balancing everything in my arms. A man approached, obviously cracked out, tweaking, whatever it is they call it when someone advances past an online shopping addiction to an actual meth addiction. There's a lot of drugged out people around here. One woman used to sit on my doorstep every day for months. Sometimes she was nice and told me I looked pretty when I came home. Sometimes she was indignant that I came out of the door and "didn't even have a puppy" with me or some other such nonsense. And sometimes she looked really, really unhappy and cold, and the last time I saw her I gave her one of my old winter coats. One time a few months ago I came home and there was a really drunk guy on the stoop with two women. He didn't want to move to let me by, and threatened to get violent. Luckily for me, the women calmed him down and I got into the building without getting beat up. Anyway, there's some sort of rehab place down the other end of the block and thus lots of drugged out and down and out people around.
So back to this afternoon, this guy is approaching and he is saying "excuse me, excuse me" and I am ignoring him, because he is definitely bad news. And I am struggling to get my keys out of my bag while holding all these dumb boxes, which are seriously slowing me down, and he is getting closer and closer and still talking to me, and I am still ignoring him and finally I can't ignore him any longer so I look at him.
I've just gotten my keys out and am trying to get them in the door. "Can you take me upstairs with you?" he says. "No!" I say, and try to get the keys in the door more quickly, but I keep slipping, and the jumbo architect lamp box in my arms is making me even more clumsy. "Please, I have nowhere to stay, can't you just take me up into your apartment with you? Take me upstairs" And he is walking closer and closer and is almost right up on the gate to the set of four stairs leading to the door that I'm still struggling to get my key into. My eyes grow wide and I say forcefully, loudly, "NO. NO!"
I had not been expecting this. I though he'd ask for some money, for the jumbo architect's lamp, whatever, not to come into my apartment. After I yell the second no, he looks at me and says "No? Oh, yeah?" And starts to open the gate and walk up. His tone is threatening, he is 2 feet away from me, and the runner rug and wall clock and jumbo architect's lamp box have made it so that I am not yet in the building, and if I know if I open the door now, he can easily push me inside and get in too. So I just stand there, wide eyed and shocked. And the first thing I think is, so, this shopping addiction is going to get me killed after all. It is only because of all the loot I'm carrying that I wasn't able to make a quick escape into the building.
And I catch sight of the guy doing construction across the street eyeing us, and it's broad daylight, and I know more or less that nothing that terrible will happen as long as I stand my ground and don't give this guy the opportunity to push me into the building and into the dark, out of the public view. And the guy stops ascending the stairs and starts laughing hysterically and saying "I'm just messing with you, I'm messing with you" and he laughs like the meth addict he is and I hear him laughing all the way down the street.
Because pretending to accost single women is hilarious. Frightening them outside of their homes, so funny. The first time you came to see me in this apartment, Dad, you were not impressed. You didn't say so, but I saw you scoping out the area when we went outside, eyes catching a teenage boy whose pants were too baggy for your liking, and you pulled me aside later and told me to be careful around here. I didn't like the looks of that guy, you said. And sometimes people make fun of me for being overly cautious, but it's always you in my head not liking the looks of some guy. This is one of those neighborhoods where a brownstone goes for three million dollars, and what may or may not come with it is a cracked out lady sitting on your stoop demanding to see a puppy.
I'm always careful, Dad, and aware of my surroundings. I have you to thank for that.
love a
Here's the honest truth: I seem to have developed a full on shopping addiction since you died. I'm not blaming you, just noting that the two are correlated. It started with redecorating the apartment as a nesting reaction to losing you. The project was a really good one to dive into, something for me, Mom, and Megan to focus on together. Very early on in the process, I felt I was craving online shopping the way an addict craves a fix. Getting lost in black holes of internet hours, clicking on rug after rug after rug. It was numbing behavior, I know enough to see that. But, I reasoned, I just went through a massively traumatic experience, I am grieving, I am doing my best to process the events and feel the pain, to work through it, but no one is able to go through things like this without a certain degree of numbing. Anyone who says they are is fooling themselves. Reese Witherspoon (not her, really, but the character she played in Wild) went on a crazy heroin and sex addicted spree for years after her mother died, then she walked across the country to combat that sort of behavior.
Clicking on endless rugs, couches, vintage opera glasses, and clocks, driving back and forth to the outlets on eastern Long Island countless times, spending a bit more than I should, and making endless trips up and down the stairs with new and discarded furniture is surely better numbing behavior than unsafe sex and heroin, right? So what if I stayed up until 2am last night because I couldn't stop searching online for the perfect wall clock. This is what I keep telling myself. And, this is what I was telling myself as I struggled down the street with all my (quite heavy) new loot today.
Because here's the other thing I have discovered. For some reason, I really and truly believe that if you are spending money at Target or some other discount store, or if you buy something that is discounted by a large percentage, then you are not actually spending money. All my loot came from Target today. I knew I wanted the lamp, which is why I went there. The clock came as a super cheap temp clock for me to put on the wall until I could afford to get the one that I've been lusting after in Williamsburg that I definitely can't afford right now. And the rug the same. I figured I'd try it out for size and then return it, buy the one online that I really like. But, really, all this stuff adds up to actual money. And for some reason I can't seem to understand that. Discount or not, it hits your credit card in the same way.
But, I digress. Walking down the street, I had to keep switching the hand that was holding the plastic handles taped onto the box that held the jumbo stainless architect's lamp. It really was quite heavy. Every twenty feet or so I had to stop, take a break, stretch out my aching hand, and switch to the other still aching hand. It took me about thirty minutes to walk the ten minutes from Target back to my house. And most of that time was spent going over the above justification in my head -- you're not doing heroin, it's okay if you're a little bit addicted to shopping right now, this is better than sex addiction, what if you became an alcoholic instead, this should be easier to quit eventually than meth, and on and on.
I reached my apartment building and fought to open up the gate to the outside stairs while still balancing everything in my arms. A man approached, obviously cracked out, tweaking, whatever it is they call it when someone advances past an online shopping addiction to an actual meth addiction. There's a lot of drugged out people around here. One woman used to sit on my doorstep every day for months. Sometimes she was nice and told me I looked pretty when I came home. Sometimes she was indignant that I came out of the door and "didn't even have a puppy" with me or some other such nonsense. And sometimes she looked really, really unhappy and cold, and the last time I saw her I gave her one of my old winter coats. One time a few months ago I came home and there was a really drunk guy on the stoop with two women. He didn't want to move to let me by, and threatened to get violent. Luckily for me, the women calmed him down and I got into the building without getting beat up. Anyway, there's some sort of rehab place down the other end of the block and thus lots of drugged out and down and out people around.
So back to this afternoon, this guy is approaching and he is saying "excuse me, excuse me" and I am ignoring him, because he is definitely bad news. And I am struggling to get my keys out of my bag while holding all these dumb boxes, which are seriously slowing me down, and he is getting closer and closer and still talking to me, and I am still ignoring him and finally I can't ignore him any longer so I look at him.
I've just gotten my keys out and am trying to get them in the door. "Can you take me upstairs with you?" he says. "No!" I say, and try to get the keys in the door more quickly, but I keep slipping, and the jumbo architect lamp box in my arms is making me even more clumsy. "Please, I have nowhere to stay, can't you just take me up into your apartment with you? Take me upstairs" And he is walking closer and closer and is almost right up on the gate to the set of four stairs leading to the door that I'm still struggling to get my key into. My eyes grow wide and I say forcefully, loudly, "NO. NO!"
I had not been expecting this. I though he'd ask for some money, for the jumbo architect's lamp, whatever, not to come into my apartment. After I yell the second no, he looks at me and says "No? Oh, yeah?" And starts to open the gate and walk up. His tone is threatening, he is 2 feet away from me, and the runner rug and wall clock and jumbo architect's lamp box have made it so that I am not yet in the building, and if I know if I open the door now, he can easily push me inside and get in too. So I just stand there, wide eyed and shocked. And the first thing I think is, so, this shopping addiction is going to get me killed after all. It is only because of all the loot I'm carrying that I wasn't able to make a quick escape into the building.
And I catch sight of the guy doing construction across the street eyeing us, and it's broad daylight, and I know more or less that nothing that terrible will happen as long as I stand my ground and don't give this guy the opportunity to push me into the building and into the dark, out of the public view. And the guy stops ascending the stairs and starts laughing hysterically and saying "I'm just messing with you, I'm messing with you" and he laughs like the meth addict he is and I hear him laughing all the way down the street.
Because pretending to accost single women is hilarious. Frightening them outside of their homes, so funny. The first time you came to see me in this apartment, Dad, you were not impressed. You didn't say so, but I saw you scoping out the area when we went outside, eyes catching a teenage boy whose pants were too baggy for your liking, and you pulled me aside later and told me to be careful around here. I didn't like the looks of that guy, you said. And sometimes people make fun of me for being overly cautious, but it's always you in my head not liking the looks of some guy. This is one of those neighborhoods where a brownstone goes for three million dollars, and what may or may not come with it is a cracked out lady sitting on your stoop demanding to see a puppy.
I'm always careful, Dad, and aware of my surroundings. I have you to thank for that.
love a
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