Of you could buy anything....

...what would it be? There are some of us who, at the thought of spending money on ourselves, go weak in the knees. Not because we go out spend everyday, but because we buy at thrift stores or second hand, rinse aluminum foil for another use (my kids love that one) hang a paper towel to dry (for reuse on drying cat's food dishes) or add water to the dish detergent bottle to get that last blast of soap. Cheap, did you say cheap? Well maybe by some standards...go look at the trash cans, dumpsters or at your neighbors stuff at the curb and you'll realize the amazing waste that goes on in the US. So after growing up rich and then at 14, recalling my Dad telling me and sister he had spent the small savings he put away for us, we went from 100 to zero in an instant. Because I was close to my father and had watched him age, nothing sadder than an old addict trying to come to grips with a life almost ending, the grief he caused so many, because of this, poverty was just another chapter for me, the downward spiral was from toddlerhood until he finally passed away. The odd thing is when I would go to shop, either for food or clothes I rarely could buy what I went into a store to purchase. If it was food, my mother would be right there next to me whispering, 'You cant eat that, dont take that, we never ate that-alluding to weight, artificial ingredients, weight or weight-leaving me with a basket of foods I would buy, refrigerate and not want to eat. Kale anyone? Taking myself clothes shopping was hideous when I went with her, tall, dark beautiful and me...chubby schoolgirl who didnt get a bra until a saleswoman said, "this girl should be wearing a bra already!!!!" as if was a matter of neglect for children's protective services to look into. Or walking along Broadway past National Shoes and looking in the windows at all the new school year shoes, red or blue with side buckles and designs at the toes, or patent leather shoes. With all our money, I was allowed only one style of shoe, saddle shoes. Those occasionally faddish freakish black/white lace up oxfords with a reddish sole that classmates referred to as clod-hoppers. Shopping at Best & Co. each year for a new wardrobe (like who the heck did my mother think she was buying school girls 'wardrobes'?), a new coat, usually velvet trimmed with matching hat, white gloves, Easter dresses (I never got this concept, my father who adamantly refused a christmas tree, allowed her to buy us Easter outfits, soup to nuts, and then sat home alone drinking as we went out to Jersey to spend the holiday with her Italian family...I guess you can say NO, just so many times). But the fancier stuff got worn to the old Metropolitan Opera House--a girl of 12 never forgets Joan Sutherland singing Lucia di Lammermoor or weeping without knowing why, watching the breathless flutterings of ballerina Margot Fonteyn or Rudolph Nureyev when the Bolshoi came to NY. Radio City Music Hall (Christmas show) Carnegie Hall for Young Children's Concerts with Leonard Bernstein. To get dressed up to go out after dark, into the creaking old metal elevator at the Met and carried upstairs to the floor where the box seats were, crying afterwards in the taxi going home, as if the world on stage withall its sorrows and murder was still filled with more genuine love, passion and humanity than what I faced each day pouring J&B into a glass and waiting to take Dad to bed. My father was a manufacturer of women's wear, when "The Garment Industry" was an industry centered in NYC at 34th street and he was 'a contender' in the game. Rich, ruthless and already married, he left his Jewish wife to marry my mother, 30+ years younger who never wanted children, but the security of what she thought an older Jewish man could provide. She had already 'raised' my cousins, her nieces, nephews from a daughter of her older sister who simply refused to be bothered with a renegade child and subsequent grandchildren. By the time my sister and I came around, kids were old news, an obligation that came with the deal one made with the devil. My kids have taken to telling me that life is not one long historical timeline, that incident of one time either my own memories or things done and said in their lives, are of no importance in the now, these memories just complicate issues at hand. Yet I live with daily, am filled with memories that have stifled me in being able, in this instance only, to go out and buy anything without someone back there making a judgement or comment. Wearing black in NY was the thing to do for so many years that my shopping phobias remained a non issue. I appeared to be in fashion. What's another black sweater? As for covering my feet, boots in the fall/winter over jeans and sandals all summer. Growing up ignorant of having flat feet, these two simplified shoe solutions worked out great. Then came the poverty of marriage compounding the loss of father/wealth and buying anything stopped for almost 15 years. How so you ask? My children wore donations, my maternity clothes were worn for 7 years straight. I think the only new things I ever bought were those velveteen house gowns we loved in CH that were bought erev yom tovim. A styled wig, a new housecoat and shoen, you were ready to serve dinner to a full table of guests who had no idea our food was all donated by community charity funds. And believe me, as sick as it may sound, it was better to have at least one guest, to draw the focus away from my oldest son who struggled to say kiddish and would be pulled by the ear or ordered to leave the table and not get dinner. Choose the nightmare you prefer. So my ability to buy things is loaded with so many issues, most of which I am aware of but have not been able to shake off. In the last couple of years I've learned to tune out my mother's voice, it was easier after she actually died and now can only rant via dreams, so I can food shop usually responsibly and sometimes actually try something new, like a frozen chicken pot pie or Coffeemate...oh c'mon you have things you look over your shoulder before tossing into the cart, we all do. And eBay opened a world that made having to spend hours walking, collecting clothes to try on in tiny rooms with little privacy, finding you're so fat you have to get dressed, and go back out there again hunting down the right size dress or outfit, not the one you thought you were. And in the 60's and '70s manufacturers were doing polyester for larger women, shapeless, dark paisleys or solid dresses, or prints you would wonder what large woman would walk around in, as if in defiance you might wear lime green shift or a red peasant dress and no one would mention what a sack of potatoes you looked like. I actually learned to love clothes from buying on ebay because for so little money, sometimes paying more for shipping than the sweater or dress, it allowed for experimentation in styles and colors...imagine a white empire dress with rosettes along the waistline after years of being hidden in head to toe black. But to answer my original question...if I could buy anything, I bought a treadmill. You would think I found a diamond ring, but what I found was an affordable machine, built for older people who need to walk, and it has excellent ratings by They Who Rate Such Things for the buying public. Seems many things today, from clothes to machines are being made for larger or heavier people. My hope is by investing in this, using it will make me smaller and healthier, ultimately putting less pressure on my joints, causing less pain, using less pain meds and being able to get outside to the amazing museums and parks in my new home town. That's what I bought for myself. I have to say it and say it again because I've wanted this for so many years and when my income was double what it is now, even then there were excuses why it wouldnt be possible. Go out today and buy something, even an ice cream cone. A pleasurable thing not a responsible thing, an irresponsible joyous item that will not only fill that hole inside but maybe will help the hole close up and the sun will begin to shine, inside and out.