Saturday, May 15, 2010

life changes through buying

I have done a lot of things in my life. I've lived in foreign countries, I've learned a foreign language, I've traveled to Africa, Asia and Europe. I've lived in Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco. I've been to New York. I've climbed the great wall of China. I've eaten Dim Sum in Hong Kong. I've been to the top of the Eiffel Tower. I've looked out over the Swiss and French Alps. I've done a lot of amazing things in my life. I've brought in the new year in Cape Town, South Africa. I've seen a film at the Cannes Film Festival.

I'm not saying this to brag. I'm saying this because I'm now doing something that I've never done before. All of these things I mention involve travel and going to new places and experiencing new foods and seeing the world in a blur as I go from one place to the next. I have not lived in one place in this globe for more than a year. Even in college, I would go every summer and then return starting my new "year". Since college I have moved from Los Angles to France to Geneva to Texas. Texas. Texas. It is much less glamorous than Cannes, Los Angles or Geneva, but I am enjoying the "American grittiness" of it. I'm really moving here. When I moved here I knew I was coming back "for good" but at the same time I kept my eye on the horizon looking for the next opportunity to take me abroad so that I might continue my fast paced, fascinating, interesting life. Yet, I am here and I am here for the foreseeable (well at least until 2011) future.

I know, now, that I am living here because I made two purchases this week of a nature that I have never made before. On Monday, I began my search for a car. I had never bought a car before this week. My uncle, who has bought innumerable cars helped me in this process and we in fact bought the very first car we found. On Monday, I ended my car search. Yesterday, on Friday, I bought a bed. I know it's not big, but I've never bought furniture before. I have never needed to furnish a place because I was never there long enough to need my "own" furnishings.

I now know that I am entering a new phase of my life because I have bought these items. I must live in a consumer driven society because I am basing my recognition of my changes through what I purchase.

1 comment:

  1. I haven't moved around nearly as much but my first bed purchase (2 years ago) was significant for me as well. Adults own their own beds. Weird. Prior to that I'd slept on the bed my parents bought me when I was a child, the bed college dorms gave me, or the bed my boyfriend already had. When I moved to Denver for law school I had to get my own bed (which was expensive!). I felt oddly independent.

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