I’m having a yard sale this weekend. Please come and buy all my crap-ola.  I don’t know how I accrue all this shizzaz. It’s as if I wake up one day and realize I will be on the next episode of Hoarders.

I don’t get it. Why, why, why do I purchase items that I know down deep will only collect dust, or rot in the back of the refrigerator?  My purchases are like those stupid captcha words you have to type in when buying concert tickets to the House of Blues. The font is a cross between a three-year-old’s scrawl and realvirtue (Who the hell uses that font? Probably the same three people who eat at Arby’s.).  Unnecessary is my point here.

I think the answer has less to do with frivolous spending, and more so with, “Oh cool! I want to be that person who wears a Roman Goddess-style belt.”

I’m not though. I look at the belt and then I put on my pants with a hole in the pocket. But I want to be that person. That person seems cool, and hip, and healthy. That chick is going to parties with bottle service and laughing about silly lame women stuck in the carpool line. She probably also owns a Jeep. Bitch.

Sometimes I want to buy a new something something and be the cool person I think  would wear/eat/use that item.

Below are some items which I have purchased (some more than once) in my vain attempt to be that person:

• The book The Secret and a couple other warm and fuzzy how to succeed in life books. I usually read at the first chapter, realize I have to make some type of collage to get my dream home by the sea, and then find I am out of glue. Spiritual Self Help Books = masking themselves as craft books.
• An extra, extra long striped scarf. This was my attempt to go Bohemian. I saw the scarf and thought, “Oh, I will wear this and my glasses while writing in a dirty coffee house that smells like Arabica beans and poor hipsters.” Unfortunately for the scarf I am super short, creating a Swiffer mop scenario for the too-cool-for-school scarf. Trendy Scarf = HoarHcrammed in the back of the closet.
• Fresh kale. I still have no idea how to cook this damn plant, but a magazine boasted of all its vitamins, anti-aging properties, and the possibility of balancing my check book. So there it sat in my crisper until it turned yellow. Super Healthy food = someone else needs to cook this sh*t.
• Yet another journal. Many a tree has died for the sole purpose of me buying the decorative covered notebook and writing on one page: Pay Electric Bill, Out of Peanut Butter, and Children with Animal Faces. Then I dutifully misplace said notebook, only to buy another one a couple of months later. Yes, I eventually use these paper books, but it seems like a waste. Sassy Journal = a felled redwood and forgotten story idea.

Bottom line – I like being me. So should you. It’s fun to try on different styles and personas, just don’t forget what you’re all about.

This weekend, as I watch strangers buy my un-wanted shirts, old baby gear, and those stupid candle holders I never used, I will feel clean. A new beginning to carve out a new piece of myself so I can go out and get new stuff to match the new and improved me.

And maybe remember to buy that damn peanut butter.