How My Bender Altered My Perspective

It's possible that we've experienced a small hiccup in our objective to fully eradicate unnecessary consumption from our lives. I've been pretty transparent this far, so when I say that we fell off the wagon, it's because I want my blog to be honestly written, not because someone caught Joshua at Costco buying pizza and beer. 

Say what?! 

It was late January and we had gone over a month without spending a dime on anything but two tanks of gas and minimal groceries, and I was fired up, man! We had made considerable progress with our debt, and I had already observed palpable transformations to our family life in just thirty short days. It was cathartic, to say the least.

And then I relapsed. 

It was one of those days when things just didn't align. We all have them, granted, but I'm pretty sure I have them more than most. So when Jude and Pearl required my undivided attention and the demands of motherhood came bidding, I put my children first, of course, but I didn't prepare myself to readjust for the "off" day. So at the end of it, yes, I had two happy kids, and I definitely consider that a win. But they were also kids up past their bedtime without dinner, and all I had on hand were dry beans and a raw chicken. And I gave in.

Enter Joshua the hero. The fixer of all of my mistakes. The one I can count on to look the other way. A victim of sublime manipulation. With dinner that I may or may not have influenced him to buy while we both talked ourselves out of talking ourselves out of breaking our streak of awesomeness. It was quite splendid. Never mind that Josh is lactose intolerant or that there wasn't a single logical explanation for buying an entire case of beer. Nonetheless, we had invited the possibility of failure in, and we reveled in it. 

The pizza was my gateway drug. A few days later I bought some yarn on eBay. I needed it to finish the shawl that I was crocheting, because everyone knows that I wear shawls. At the grocery store I bought some wine along with my staples with the excuse that I was going to cook with it. I didn't even drink it while cooking. Then I bought some books for Jude, which are educational, and they made me feel better about the wine. And then it snowed. 

Snow. My ultimate weakness. The reason they invented whiskey. A legitimate excuse to stockpile random crap, because who knows if this is going to be "The Big One." The weatherman might be wrong. It could be the end of the world. And don't forget all of the extra, non-essential, and therefore expensive groceries for our favorite late-night comfort foods. Because at our house, being snowed-in requires that our kitchen be temporarily converted into a gastropub. 

I was, by this time, in danger of completely reverting back into my old spending patterns, and Joshua wasn't complaining, because I was buying meat. Using the snow as an excuse for a vacation from day-to-day life, I randomly looked at one of my forbidden shopping websites that I hadn't so much as thought about since Christmas. Of course I was overwhelmed with sale after glorious sale. And I didn't have snow boots. Do you see where this is going? Needless to say, what began as an innocent and forgivable pizza dinner ultimately culminated in my purchase of a pair of boots that are, to be frank, never going to be worn in the snow. I knew I had gone too far. But with final sale items there are no returns, and in the words of John Lennon, "living is easy with eyes closed."

I have since gotten back in the saddle and am behaving myself once again, but that momentary lapse in judgment was a good reminder of just how easy it is to slip back into our old habits. In addition, it further strengthened my desire to be unaffected by the lure of material wealth (i.e. shoes), which I am not yet immune to, as much as I try to be. 

While we continue to make significant headway with our debt and unquestionably learn from our mistakes, the light in the darkness is that after only two months, I feel that my mindset has been permanently altered. Because although I still spent money on things that were far from necessary, I wasn't completely oblivious to it as I had been in the past. Does that make our little joyride ok? No, in fact it most definitely makes it worse. But I feel that acknowledging this also confirms the wisdom that I've gained through my trials, which rather forcibly establishes our carelessness in our financial affairs as past tense. Our days of feigning ignorance are over, whether we like it or not. And for that, I am grateful that I have these most excellent boots as a memento of irresponsible days gone by.

"When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me."

-Paul the Apostle

1 Corinthians 13:11 NIV

"For wisdom is more precious than rubies, and nothing you desire can compare with her."

-Solomon
Proverbs 8:11 NIV