small tits big dreams

crocheting

cross stitching

painting planters

contour drawing

bead jewelry

I bought a swim top.. which may sound very insignificant but it is far from it. Walk with me for a sec; my problem in the past has been impulse buys, right? Never saving money for something that I really want, but always going to look for what I can buy as soon as I get a sum of money. And yes, the problem stemmed from the way that I could never keep my own money growing up - if I had cash lying around or money stored on a card, it would be taken from me. Not stolen, but I would be guilted into giving it up for some reason or another. So I would turn the money into an item which then made it impossible for someone else to spend. Smart thinking for a small Otter. Anyways, then I got out of that situation/living hell but the habit stuck. Tumble weeding me towards spending two grand on a dog because I had the money :D no regrets obviously. I love the weasel and she’s the reason I kept trying to get myself out of horrible situations because I would say “so maybe I deserve to be here where everyone hates me and talks shit about me, but it’s not a safe environment for whiskey.” BUT I think it was that purchase that made me realize I had a spending problem. And of course I kept the habit for a few more months on a smaller scale. Old habits don’t just kick it because you develop an awareness over them. 

Anyways fast forward to now, I am getting a job that pays super well and will only be moving upwards from here career wise. I’m doing okay on money for the time being because I have slowly over time dropped that old habit. It took a lot of little lessons being learned but I did it. And I guess somewhere along the way I moved to the opposite side of the sliding scale that is impulse buy to hoarding money. I was staring at this swim top on my phone and thinking of getting it as a treat for getting this new job. I kept going back and forth and Mitchell brought something to my attention: he said “the more time you spend on pinterest, the more you want things you don’t have. And you torture yourself just staring at the things without buying them, holding yourself in a state of lack.”

Eyes opened. Yes exactly. I replaced Instagram with Pinterest because it was easier for me. It doesn’t breed the upset-that-I-don’t-look-like-that feeling that ig does, but it did replace it with a constant longing for things I can’t realistically have right now. Interesting. I noted that I have had the swim top in my cart on Etsy for over a year. For more than 12 months I’ve been holding myself in a state of lack with just that one item. How many other things had I done this with in that time? 

This photo is from a night that I can still feel, thinking back. At this point I had just begun living in a safe and stable home for the very first time. I was out on the beach with my new roommates during a meteor shower. We were running around and laughing and racing and splashing in the sea when we stumbled upon bioluminescent plankton. It looked like magic, glowing stars by our feet. When we finally crashed to look up at the sky, we witnessed meteor after meteor shooting by. I talked about the alien ships that I used to see in the sky when I was younger. The ones with red and green lights that zip around the universe faster than anything possible for humans. 

I tried instagram again and.... I’ve already re-disabled the account. Lasted about seven minutes. Honestly, a personal best; or a personal worst depending on how you’re looking at it I suppose. My journey through the era of social media has been treacherous. Makes sense that it would be this way considering I have trouble finding comfortability with the fact that people can conceptualize me and their ability to do so is not dependent on my presence. It is a scary thing to exist as a concept in someone else’s mind. And to fuel that concept by sharing details of our lives through photos and clips, its like shattering a colossal, beautiful stained glass window and showing off particularly sparkly shards to impress whoever passes by. 

In my experience, the social aspect of media reduces what you can get out of life because it is no longer enough to experience the beauty of the earth or the new feelings it inspires or the reawakening of old, old feelings from lives I’ve long forgotten. My drive becomes to provide for others need to consume entertainment, and to constantly deliver the most impressive experiences to create an image of success or one of beauty. With the pressure of an audience of past acquaintances, I can never just share. I inevitably think about what version of myself I want others to picture when they think of me. 

I am content with who I am and I know that I am faceted and that everything I share is real and is me, but the consideration and control and time that I give to what I want others to think about when it comes to myself is the problem; which of my facets do I want everyone to think of as the entirety of me? So much so that I begin thinking about these things even when I’m not using the app.. “where can I take a photo today to show that I’m spontaneous?”..“which one-line caption shows that I am fun and carefree?” It all becomes very tedious and draining.