Instead of getting a little gift for Easter, my parents gave me $50 and told me to spend it on something nice for myself--something that wasn't food. I told my mom that I didn't want to take her money, but she insisted, claiming that she would've ended up spending it on me anyways. Reluctantly I accepted the cash, telling her that I wouldn't be frivolous with it and spend it on something that I didn't need. Oddly enough, she insisted that the money be used to buy a gift for myself. What did I get for myself? A triple grande mocha from Starbucks. What did I spend the money on? Two books for my friends' birthdays. Happy Easter to me.
To be honest, I hate the concept of money. Mainly because I don't understand why people base the majority of their emotions off of their finances, but also because I find said practice as exhausting--because the concept of money, wealth, poverty, economics--all of them--are contrived concepts. This being said, however, I do tend to fall into the same emotional slumps that I so often criticize, from time to time. I'm not a girl who is obsessed with expensive things by any means: I do the majority of my shopping at Target and I love the concept of Clearance. Don't get me wrong, there are definetly times where I do buy overpriced objects, but I have not made a habit of it. Since coming to school though, I have come to feel alienated from many of my Coach-adorned classmates, complete with Ray-bans, Le Sport Sacs, and Burberry scarves.
To be honest, I hate the concept of money. Mainly because I don't understand why people base the majority of their emotions off of their finances, but also because I find said practice as exhausting--because the concept of money, wealth, poverty, economics--all of them--are contrived concepts. This being said, however, I do tend to fall into the same emotional slumps that I so often criticize, from time to time. I'm not a girl who is obsessed with expensive things by any means: I do the majority of my shopping at Target and I love the concept of Clearance. Don't get me wrong, there are definetly times where I do buy overpriced objects, but I have not made a habit of it. Since coming to school though, I have come to feel alienated from many of my Coach-adorned classmates, complete with Ray-bans, Le Sport Sacs, and Burberry scarves.
Today I went to the Prudential Center shops with my next-door neighbor Erica, who dragged me to the Coach store to help her pick out a birthday present for her roommate. Having no concept of money whatsoever, she easily and willingly dropped $40 on a keychain and decided to purchase the second part of the birthday present (from Marc Jacobs, of course) at a later date. As she debated over which keychain she should buy, I snuck peeks at price tags, realizing that currently I could hardly afford anything in the store and even if I COULD, I would never spend such an outrageous amount of money on something so commonplace. This realization immediately had two effects on my pysche: First, it made me feel extremely smart that I, unlike so many other girls I know, would never be overcharged for a purse, keychain, etc. Secondly, it made me feel extremely sad, alienated, and entirely second-class. I realized that no matter how hard I worked--no matter how smart I was--I would never be able to comfortably afford such overly-priced extravagances, or at least feel comfortable doing so. In a way it was gratifying to know that I don't need material posessions to define me, but at the same time I wished that I had the options and opportunities of my friends.
After picking up the keychain, we hopped back on the T to school where Erica began telling me about the vacations to Germany and Israel she had just booked for the summer. She also told me that her father was going to hook up her (asshole) boyfriend with an "amazing" internship at Charles Schwabb, complaining that she, herself, would probably be spending her summer at the beach in Orange County because she doesn't feel like getting a job. In my head I looked ahead to my own summer:
Sometimes I want to hit her.
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