Is it veeerrrry expensive?

Today I am thankful that my family is healthy.  That’s my fallback gratitude.  Daniel knows so many people who are ill, or who have died — as I will, too when I am his age.

I have spent a lot of money on clothes this month.  Enough to buy an iPad, and have a little left over; enough to buy two plane tickets so that Milo and I could visit my parents and grandmothers this summer; enough to pay for a month of fertility enhancing acupuncture, if I were still doing that kind of thing;  enough to pay for a much-needed new mattress for the bed in the guest bedroom (where I sleep sometimes when Daniel’s snoring wakes me up at 3am).  But… not enough for a flat screen TV, or good tickets to the final four (probably), or an out-of-pocket IUI cycle.

And for a week, I’ve been writing this post in my head while I try to get comfortable with spending that much money on clothes.   I came home Sunday afternoon, and my mother was in my kitchen.  I showed her two skirts I’d bought that day, one of which I might take back.  She really liked the skirt-on-probation.  She asked, “Was it veeerrry expensive?”  I asked her what she meant by “very expensive.”  She said, “More than $50.” (It was $58.99)

This is why my parents have a vacation home and I couldn’t afford IVF.  (That’s one version of the inter-generational money story– the other is that, notwithstanding their frugality, they couldn’t afford to send me to my first choice private college 20 years ago, mostly because my dad had been unemployed for a spell during my teens).

What are these clothes?  They aren’t necessities — I had a range of appropriate work and play clothes before I practically melted my Visa card.  They are convenience — I will find it less taxing to find an outfit for the day ahead now that I have them.  They are aspirations — they are in general more tailored and business-like than what I already had, in keeping with my desire to step up at work.  They are pleasure — I like seeing them in my closet and on my person.  They are experiments — a short-sleeved double-breasted blazer? Really?  They are indulgences — I went to buy a pair of business trip shoes and ended up with two pairs of 3+ inch platforms (both at 85% discount, but that doesn’t make them any more suited for racing through an airport with a wheelie suitcase behind me and an over-caffeinated boss very far ahead of me).  They encapsulate small ironies — I went shopping for business trip clothes, and wore my same old tired black and gray workhorse outfits this week when I traveled; and since I spent all that money on new stuff, I’ve suddenly seen the merits of long-neglected blouses and skirts.

These clothes are self assertion in textile form.  I wanted them.  I carefully or not carefully selected them to meet needs that I had identified for myself or whims that hit me, and those needs and whims didn’t correspond to any larger social or moral endeavor.  Nobody’s life is better because I have these clothes except mine.  Am I allowed that?  Isn’t that… indulgent?  Haven’t I learned that I need to regain the family tradition of frugality after the no-money-for-IVF heartbreak?

Answers: Yes. Yes — and that’s not a bad thing.  It wouldn’t matter, because if I spent this much on clothes every month for a year, it still wouldn’t add up to the cost of the IVF we needed.  So there!  I earned the money I spent.  I am not neglecting my other obligations to pay for these clothes (although I’ll have to delay a donation to a Japan disaster relief fund).  I still bought water filters and food.  I can pay off my credit card balance when it’s due, barring some unforeseen expense.  I am still saving for all kinds of worthy, self-improving or other-improving things.

And yet… last week there were nights I could hardly sleep from anxiety about my purchases.

I am anxious about the big expenditure all at once.  I’ve never before been a person who buys a lot of new clothes at the beginning of a new season (do I mean climatalogical season or fashion season?  Not sure).  I usually dribble it out over several months.  I’ve had some sister-in-law induced binges before, but this was more like a campaign.  Mission accomplished.  I think I like shopping this way, once I get over the shock.  It suits how I like to spend my time.  Now I’m done for a while.  As the season progresses, I’ll make note of what I wish I had, and buy that next year.  (I keep a list in my phone.)  Now I can think about wearing, not acquiring.

I am also anxious about making mistakes (see: short-sleeved double-breasted blazer, bought from a consignment store and unreturn-able; see: 3+ inch platforms, on massive discount but also final sale and perhaps 1/2 a size too big).  I wanted to have shopping down to a science.  I wanted to be smart and precise and perfect and master of all of the rules of shopping promulgated by very smart and thrifty fashion bloggers.  I wanted to sail prudently past the beautiful black cocktail dress (also 85% off) that was so lovely but not mentioned in the list on my phone, not strictly necessary, and not something I can imagine re-styling 5 different ways so that I could wear it both to play tennis and meet the Queen.  I wanted to say “no” to something at such a steep discount, transcending so many old habits.  But I didn’t.

And I’m anxious because it’s a little hard to come down off this binge.  I would find it useful to have three more pairs of shoes (yes, even more!), specifically a pair of comfortable flat sandals to replace the ones I’ve had for two years that have had the padding pounded out of them; a pair of new cloth-and-rubber Danskos (all the comfort, 1/4 the weight) to wear like sneakers — my Converse aren’t supportive enough; and a pair of beige heeled sandals to replace some very cute slingbacks that blister my big toes and just hurt even after 2 years of wear.  I told myself I’d buy those in April, when my credit card resets.  Oh but today, I was trolling Amazon.com again, searching, searching for the perfect shoes.  And I bought some.  These beige sandals, for $40, because I was afraid someone else would and Amazon said they were the last pair.  Only $40, right?  I can quit any time I want to, I just don’t want to yet.   I exerted enough willpower not to buy these, or these (ah, silver shoes.  I had a pair of silver ballet flats in high school and I loved them so)?

But there’s also this, which I’d almost forgotten, honestly — but it was the thing that made me re-read the post looking for the missing truth:  I could not spend money like this on clothes if we had another child.  These clothes are in my closet because there’s no baby in my house.  And I liked buying them.  I like having them.  I like doing things that I couldn’t do if I had gotten what I wanted.  Like, enjoy, revel in and rage at, can’t bear, make-me-sad are interwoven and waiting for me to put them on and walk out the door.  That unnerves me.  And another thing: I feel like being a snazzy dresser (love that word, snazzy — it’s a word I heard growing up and never hear now) is a blaring indicator of my not-enough-of-a-mom status.  “Oh, her fancy clothes,” I hear the enough-of-a-moms say, in their hushed, affronted, and judgmental tones.  “Well, of course she can wear those.  She has time to shop, she has money to spend.  She just has the one.”  Never mind that plenty of the mothers-of-many at Milo’s school wear lovely and expensive things.

It’s late now, later than I want to be blogging.  I thought I could wrap this up more neatly or originally than this.  Clothes are symbols of so many things for me, more than I can address even in a very long post.