"She gotta Gucci fetish
She gotta louie problem
She gotta shoppin problem,
Dat gurls a shopaholic"
You see the shoes in the picture below? I just finished counting them after my 3rd cleaning cycle resulting in 54 pairs, go
figure how this used to be.
The yellow and red flags

I can’t even remembered when this shopaholic thing started,
I recall been a fashion enthusiast since I was very young but it wasn’t until my
college years that it started being a problem when somehow I managed to
wear
something new EVERY Monday: a blouse, a purse, a pair of earrings, it really didn’t
matter, the point was that Mondays were awful and the only way to deal with
them was by buying new stuff (insert yellow flag here).
I’d visit the mall regularly and just buy whatever seemed to
be trendy I wasn’t really worried about the price, if I wanted I had it and
when the number of bags with new stuff were too evident that my parents started
asking questions I would start hiding my new stuff in the trunk of my car, in
my closet or just telling them things like: “this was a gift from (friend/boyfriend/…)”
or “I had own this for a long time, I just wasn’t ready to use it” (insert red
flag here)
And then everything went nuts
After college I moved to a new city and started living by my
own, things just went nuts, I’d go to all of my favorite stores sales and would
get out of there with bags and bags of stuff that I didn’t even bother in
trying out, even worst I’d go to international trips with friends with the solely
purpose of buying, I had the idea that if I bought something in an outlet/factory store I was
not spending money, I was SAVING it: “If I pay 100 USD for this dress, which
original price was 150 USD and that I would probably find in Mexico in the equivalent
to 300 USD, I’m actually saving 200 USD”, what a moron.

I got to a point when I didn’t have space in my house to
store more stuff, what did I do? Start using my suitcases to keep seasonal garments:
during summer I’d keep my coats there, in winter I’d switch coats for
shorts/light dresses, etc., but it got even worse, I started borrowing space in
my sister’s closet, I’d buy an armoire to store coats and dresses, I’d keep
clothes in my friends closets, this just got ridiculous.
Worst part, I never
had anything to wear, my house was full of clothes but I wasn’t able to put
together an outfit to go out without suffering, I had a lot of things but I was buying without
any idea of what I really needed, why on earth would I use those pairs of
4-inch heels if I was walking all day between meetings at the office and don’t
even let me start with the number of coats of a person living in one of the
sunniest cities in the world, I wasn’t thinking and I ended up with a bunch of
useless clothes.
The Breaking point
I’m not sure which was the breaking point, I just remember
that the joke about me going to shop in my own closet was not funny anymore and
having my family and friends teasing me about my buying habits just starting
being offensive, I was more than a mall-rat but I needed to get my priorities aligned
and to start doing something with my massive load of things.
I started by trying in everything, every single item, and it
was no surprise that a good amount of things were not flattering at all, I have
gone through a number of “Scrub” cycles resulting in tons of bags going away of
gifted, donated & tossed items, I’ve reserved a small number of things to
be fixed and finally got to a final quantity of stored things that works for me
matching with my current lifestyle.
As any former addict, Relapsing is something that I’m very
concern about because this was a way of living, not a hobby, so this required
a whole change: I started occupying my time in more productive things like
enrolling to study a second major in design, practicing other sports besides
tennis, cooking
etc., and by the other
hand I cut ties with people that was against my journey, and I got it, they
have their own battle and needed someone to be an enabler of that kind of life but
that wouldn’t be me anymore.
Why to share this?
Why am I sharing all of this? Reality is that I’m a very
reserved person and I’m not the most comfortable sharing my flaws for everyone
to know, but if I can help someone else to make a change to a more rewarding
life like I did, then something good will come out of this.
The idea behind this blog is to share Travels experiences, DIY projects and useful info so I’ll write more posts about my self-imposed golden rules to live an
intentional happy life and BTW I’m still gifting unused shoes so if your size
is 5.5 I probably have a nice pair calling your name, just let me know.
XOXO
Tany