What I bought. How it felt. And 6 things I learned.

****TRIGGER WARNING. I discuss GLP use, food issues, cravings, weight loss. Please skip as needed to protect your health.**** If you do want to follow along on this front, you may want to start in May’s entry.

[Background: In January, 2025, I decided to BE DONE with rules. No more “no-buys” “one-buys” — all of it had made shopping too big a focus in my life. (More on that here if you’re interested.) I then completed a class on over-shopping. Clothing and shopping are still passions of mine, and I do not apologize for loving them. But I can’t Nike “just do it” when it comes to this stuff. My 2026 goal: Practicing mindful, nontoxic shopping. This includes opting out of online shopping/browsing except weekends and keeping a Shopping Diary that I share monthly with paid subscribers.]

[AND: If you don’t want to talk about shopping even tangentially because of what’s happening in the world, I get it. But I will continue to be real - which means all the things combined: sorrow, fear, joy, escape, despair, embrace, all the things inside of me right now and maybe you too.]

I can already tell I’m going to cry as I write this. Shit.

I keep thinking about the past. This, right now, is decidedly my best era. I am happier older. No contest. Especially when I compare it to my 20s and 30s. But … that girl. The one I was at 6. Who wrote in her journal “I want to have some iventures.” I’ve been missing her, I think I can learn from her, and I’m starting to find her again.

I’ve been doing a lot of traveling (always a time to get thoughtful and go deep). And I was back in NYC recently. I thought about all the times my son went off with his grandparents to New York. “We feel so lucky that you want to come with us!” they said. “What makes you always say yes?” And he answered with a shrug. “See things, get stuff.” Magic.

It all gets so much more complicated.

But before that. Before the complications. Before we start second guessing. When we just DO and figure the world will take care of us, and know it so deep in the fibers of our being we’d never consider anything else, when we just trust fall daily into the universe. We are this unchecked, whole-hearted, whole-throated person.

Can you go back? Can you be that person again?