I don’t know why I am focused on spending money. The best thing I did this year was decide that I couldn’t buy things online during Lent, which has spared me from impulse purchases and forced me to consider how much of my wanting stuff is just trying to perfect things I already have, in that eternal quest to have The One Perfect Thing. I am good on lightsabers, on computing equipment, on outerwear. So why do I still want these things?
As always, I think it goes back to wanting to need those things. I want to be somewhere I’ll need the linen blazer, or the charcoal wool Crombie coat with a custom gold lining. Somewhere I will have need of my own MacBook Neo. Somewhere I have an excuse to have a personalized lightsaber on my hip at all times. Basically I want to be able to work remotely from Galaxy’s Edge at Disneyland Galway, is what it feels like.
It’s another flavor of escape. Same reason I have the “False Trip” playlist full of songs that replicate the sound of the lobby and lounge room music at the Park Lane, or the candles that approximate the smell they pump in there. Same reason I now have a purpose-acquired Yeti just for work and a separate one with a different texture that never leaves the house so that I’ll know I’m not on the job when I sip from it. I even loaded up big on the Nitro Emerald Cliffs dry stout from Athletic so i can have as many pints as I want without ruining my health.
You can’t assume the world is going to get any better. You have to accept that things will never go back to how they used to be. You just have to make the most of what there is now – whether it’s the unlikely return or regular trad to the nearest pub, or the presence of a dive bar and a cocktail lounge less than three miles away, or the walkable village, or the candles and purple light in the shed. Or the saber you have, or the family laptop (even if it doesn’t have your stickers), or your new linen blazer that can stand up to even 80 degrees. FInd a reason to need the things you have, and then use them.