LUSH

When I lived in Seattle, right after I met Dane and we started dating, my previous boyfriend tried to woo me back. On my birthday, he assembled everything that he knew I loved: art, Marco's Supper Club in Seattle, and a small pink satin purse covered in pink feathers.

Huh, you say? Pink feathers?

Seriously. I LOVED that purse. Loved it like a fat kid love cake. It was frothy and frivolous and LUSH.

I miss lush.

Irony du jour: I am drinking as I write this. Get it? Lush? Anyway.

In the movie 3:10 to Yuma, the outlaw  Ben Wade sidles up behind a barmaid and whispers into the nape of her neck, "You look skinny." And she says, "I feel skinny."

Well, I feel skinny, too. Deprived and sere. 

I am craving soft beds, fluffy sweaters, rich chocolate, sumptuous lotion and cashmere socks. A metaphorical feather purse - beautiful JUST BECAUSE.

Sometimes I get sick of being me, the conscious consumer. I can't buy lettuce without thinking about the workers, the chemicals, the dying bees. My eyes go automatically to the label and my mind flies to the small children busily sewing my clothes and dying in their 20s from poor health due to inhaling fibers for their entire short lives. I can't buy something new if I already have the same thing (and it still works), and every penny that comes out of my hand has been considered thoroughly before exiting my care. I have too much of my grandmother in me: "Use it up, wear it out, make do, or do without." It's exhausting.

Just once, for a little period of time, I would like to not be me. I would like to shuffle off the overly active imagination, the brain that won't shut off, the sensitivity to all of the pain in the world that needs to be carefully monitored or else it becomes debilitating. I'd like to not worry so often about everything.

I would like to fling money around without care, spoil myself, be irresponsible. I couldn't do it before Dane died, and I can't do it now. The other ironic part of this is that even with all of that, I still don't feel like an adult. So that's good, I guess?

The trick about LUSH is that I know that a pink feather purse won't cut the mustard; it will fill no void, and things won't be different. I won't be different. Still. Sometimes it's nice to have beautiful, sumptuous things surrounding you instead of worn out and tired things. They make me feel worn out and tired, and that is the very last thing I need at this point.

What do you do when you need lush?