In the States I was always hungry for what I didn’t have, for who I wasn’t.

In Portland, a city of, among other people, fashionable, hip(ster) types, I always wanted. To have pretty clothes, a thin yet busty frame on which to hang those clothes, hair styled with the right amount of sass and nonchalance, make-up that accentuated the right features, with just a splash of whimsy, a shiny computer, a shiny bike, and eclectic, comfortable, and colorful home decor. An attitude of You Wish You Were Me. Because this, with my tunnel vision, is what I saw everywhere, in walking down the street, or biking to work, or going to the grocery store, or sitting in the lobby of a theatre. Even at the library I would see something I longed for, perhaps previously unknown. I lived in a very trendy part of town. A short walk supplied a day’s worth of ego crushing eye candy, sometimes enough to send me back to bed, burrowing beneath the sheets, simultaneously wishing to be and live in pretty and wishing it not to matter. I pinched my excess flesh in the mirror. I sighed at the sight of my 4 work outfits. I drooled at Modcloth and friends on Facebook, among too many others.

[I feel I should mention that it was my choice to live without much of the means to my desired ends. I worked part-time for 7 years so that I could pursue creative fantasies that paid nil. After awhile I grew resentful that I had to choose. And ashamed. Although, even if I did have the money, I wouldn’t have the skill to put together all the pieces of the person I wanted to look like or the world I wanted to see.]

Of course, I would also see people who had little, some by choice and others not, and would try to use those images to counterbalance the ache. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do when focussing on the superficial?

Here, I’m not bombarded with these images. Being thin doesn’t seem to be fetishized, nor starving yourself (I happily accept your extra plantains.), and while the women may dress well, they’re rarely fashions I would want. Make-up uncommon on faces I see daily. Fancy computers non-existent. Bikes functional, not fashionable. Furniture plastic chairs. Houses concrete blocks. I look in the mirror to balance my pig tails, check for zits, and seldom else. Sure, some of the co-volunteers are my thin ideal and all are more fashionable than I, but I don’t think much about it. I have no one to impress. I want less, although if that’s due to lack of reminders or just exhaustion, I don’t know.

One day I will return to the States, to the land of desire and want and don’t haves and shoulds, and the hungry gremlins will return, because they’re still there. I do want pretty dresses, I still want to know how to wear make-up on sparkly occasions, I want to know how to style my hair, I want a new computer. I want pretty. I like shiny objects. It’s not that I’ve figured out what’s important—I know the important—only suppressed these desires. I don’t look forward to the want, the hunger, the sighs. Want wastes so much energy and what I want are unnecessaries.

Or are they? Is there anything wrong with wanting pretty? Or is the wrong in that it means so much?

Briefly,

theresa

P.S. This is only the tip of my complicated thoughts on this topic. No doubt I will revisit. Stay tuned!

P.P.S. Sloths really like zucchini.