Reformed Shopaholic

I went to South Coast Plaza today. I checked out Burberry, Saks, Nordstrom and Gucci. I felt zero temptation. I didn’t even have to talk myself out of temptation today. I felt nothing. Than I walked past Lawry’s. —Now that seemed like a good idea! I ordered a turkey and cranberry carver sandwich, which tasted perfect. 

I wanted to feel something when walking through the stores but a $400 Burberry bag (on sale) caused me to feel nothing. I could buy a million clothes from Lululemon for $400, which I would actually wear every day! (called a Mom Uniform! I’ve been wearing athletic gear non-stop for months on end now!)

My level of temptation was non-existent, completely undetectable! I didn’t even realize I ever acted like a deranged lunatic spending thousands of dollars at the mall until it dawned on me that temptation never crossed my mind, and I used to feel BOMBARDED by temptation. I wondered, Where did my temptation go? How did it all of a sudden vanish? How did this happen?

Since having a second child, I’d become much more practical. I was practical and lets face it…I already owned everything inside the mall and I didn’t need to make duplicate purchases! I was only interested in purchases I would wear every single day!

I had one of my top ten strangest days today. TOP TEN. All my help with my newborn and toddler was cut off this week after the first of January. My in laws returned home and my Dad had a major cold. My husband had to go to work super early this entire week. My son woke up at 7:30 a.m. so I needed to be up and out of bed, regardless of how poorly I slept with the newborn. I could have had a meltdown from feeling all alone but didn’t. Overnight, I decided to adapt. Something inside my mind just clicked over.

Suddenly my newborn mellowed out and seemed a hundred times easier. My toddler became helpful, stopped throwing tantrums and became my side-kick. The first day was somewhat exhausting but today I felt much more durable. My sister and mother helped me grocery shop and take the newborn to a doctors appointment so I completed a couple critical tasks with help. Besides a couple moments, I was basically alone.

Anything that potentially might bother me, I completely blew off…like not knowing any of the other mothers at the park who ignored me when I showed up with my double stroller. I didn’t care that my toddler wanted to run around while I nursed the baby. I didn’t feel like everything was out of control, like I had in the past. I felt amazing being with the kids. Today I told my husband “I crossed over.” This was around lunchtime. He was amazed I had nothing to complain about.

After work, my husband sat in his car outside while I passed by on the sidewalk, pushing our sons in the double stroller having walked to the grocery store. We waved and I continued back to our house. “Daddy is home but he’s still working,” I told our toddler. My husband was on the phone. 

I was excited for my husband to walk inside and see the picture perfect image of me in motherhood, finally, after much debate about whether or not I could accept myself as a stay at home mother. Our house was orderly, both kids were mellow and happy and I knew what we were eating for dinner. In an uncanny turn of events, my husband walked inside our house and said, “Don’t freak out but I just got laid off.” He threw a personnel file on the countertop.

Holy shit my friends. My husband lost his job today!

Do you remember how he insisted I cancel my medical benefits that the whole family was under, moving us over to his benefits during enrollment? I procrastinated and procrastinated about canceling our medical benefits and finally did. I wrote about taking the plunge in October or November, which represented a giant leap of faith towards embracing the transfer of power. 

What I failed to mention was two days before enrollment closed I reenrolled our family in medical benefits because I figured it was no harm done if I was going to quit. I felt better reenrolling because something felt wrong about canceling them entirely. I wasn’t sure if reenrolling was more about ME not accepting my role, or more about my husband and my premonition. 

I told my husband I kept my family medical benefits in a more limited capacity, just incase, and they could be cancelled during maternity leave so this was no harm done. He didn’t think I needed to keep them but figured, “Whatever makes you happy!” He knew I was having a hard time letting go. 

It was a good thing I had a hard time letting go. I had under three months left of maternity leave and my husband was going to engage in a full-time campaign to land an equivalent job. From dealing with friends who were laid off in the past, I knew it took longer than a few months to land and get situated in a new job. It seemed like the decision was being made for me, even if my husband believed he would regain control over our survival. I was going back to work. 

At first this saddened me but then again, I was okay. I had many many moments where I missed work. I liked working. I just didn’t want to pawn my kids off on a nanny or put a newborn in daycare. I felt it was inevitable I would be going back to work while my husband sorted out his future. My mother in law could come back to our house and help my husband after I returned to work so he could be freed up to interview. 

Meanwhile I could pay all our bills. I could pay them and I WILL pay them. You try to change who you are but a lot of our identity is just imposed on us. I was born with the ambition gene and the gene refused to die. It was a good thing I got my shopaholic gene under control. There were still some things that could be controlled.

Time to revisit this book! I am seriously going f*&%$ing crazy! It’s 4:47am and I’ve only had three hours of sleep. My new years resolution is much more simple this year! It’s to get some %^&*$ing sleep! Update: I let the baby cry for five minutes, picked him up for two minutes in which he fell asleep, and then put him back in his crib. He has been asleep for a minute so I’m on my way to achieving this resolution!

I approached the moment I started my blog while counting down the New Year on December 31st, 2010. December 31st 2010 represented a moment of extreme self-loathing. My son was sick every month in daycare, contracted MRSA twice plus six ear infections and was being raised in a daycare. I hated my manager yet remained further indebted to him with each expensive department store purchase. Each purchase was an attempt to escape yet only prevented me from seeing clearly.

Everything I wanted has come true for me this year: a new baby, more money in savings, an opportunity to quit my job and refocused purpose. I was not perfect in my attempt to stop spending money, although I re-calibrated my spending and now considered shopping a functional habit rather than an addiction. 

My Dad was absolutely correct. I needed to see the movie “We Bought a Zoo.” My in- laws allowed me and my husband to go on an early date tonight. One of the redeeming messages was that you just needed twenty minutes of insane courage. I needed to leverage my twenty minutes of insane courage and quit my job. I needed to take care of our kids and see what else the universe had in store. I needed a new adventure. 

I know there are going to be many people out there who will tell me I am absolutely insane to quit a huge paying job in this economy and I want to respond. I am lucky to have a job. I am lucky I figured out that sales was a natural way for me to make money. I’ve spent over fourteen years honing my sales skills in different sale jobs. I am lucky that there’s a lot of money in sales. —But luck extends itself out in multiple ways and I want to be lucky in an entirely different way, in a more challenging and fulfilling way.

Finding the right balance in life is more complicated than calculating dollars and cents. If I don’t leap out of this job and open myself up to a new adventure, I am going to rot in this sales job. There is nothing more this sales job can do for me other than provide a paycheck. The paycheck is not enough to cover the extreme lack of purpose I feel at work and the resentment felt from my son and potentially my newborn. 

I can not open myself up to my next adventure if I do not quit my job. Quitting my job creates a rite of passage into new opportunity that will not make itself available unless I walk away. I know it is “theoretically” easier to find a new job if I already have one but conventional thinking does not work for me, never has and never will. I have always acted intuitively, not according to theory, and have not followed all the rules. Rules are all man made interventions anyway and not the absolute truth.

I do not care if it is more difficult to find another job. I don’t just want another job. 

I also want my kids to be taken care of by a family member while they are little. I’M the only available family member. 

So here I am, exactly one year later. I know what I am going to do. In fact, I have no doubt that I am quitting my job. I have no doubt something much more interesting is going to happen to me. I have overcome my FEAR. Goodbye fear. Time to find something new to be scared about. The fear from my past life has lost it’s grip over me because I no longer find it interesting enough to allow it to engage me. I am bored with that fear. I want to find something that I find absolutely terrifyingly interesting. Being home with two kids and no real corporate job is a great start.