I got this typewriter that’s really a pen/pencil/whatever catchall for my desk. I’d been eyeing it for months online. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I really want an actual typewriter, but not really because seriously finding ribbons and dealing with stuck keys and and and…no thank you. But still. An actual typewriter? *swoon* So I finally got the next best thing, a cute not-a-typewriter that holds my pens and pencils and scissors and highlighter….

It arrived the other day and as I pulled it out of the cardboard box and the styrofoam it arrived in I thought to myself, “this is a piece of junk.” It’s not ceramic or plastic, or maybe it is, I can’t really tell what it’s made of. It feels cheap. It definitely doesn’t look as good as it did in the pictures online. I put my stuff in it anyway. I set it up on my desk anyway. I’m staring at it anyway.

From this distance, it’s not so bad. Sitting back against the wall a little over a foot from where my eyes are up here sitting back upright in my chair, typing away on my computer. My computer, not my typewriter. Because a computer is logical. Until the power goes out and you lose internet and you’ve not backed anything up and….

I’ve always been an emotional buyer.

After I had my first kiddo and I was in a tailspin of barely showering once a week, unable to put the baby down without him screaming bloody murder, constantly breastfeeding (yes, constantly, there were a lot of issues and it took over six months to sort them all out), not sleeping because of a lifetime of insomnia combined with fear and anxiety over this little creature that did not appear to be making it and all because of me because it was all up to me because he was mine and I was responsible for him and I had the boobs and they were doing their job but something still wasn’t right and *spiral*

Anyway, somewhere in there these leggings and dresses and shirts became super popular, I don’t think I need to state a brand here. They were everywhere. Pop-up sales and internet sales and MLM sales and at garage sales and swap meets and and and. You couldn’t get away. I was desperate for something to bring some order to my day, some joy, and I needed clothes so…flash forward a month or so and I had more of these clothes than I could wear in a month if I never wore the same thing twice. More than I could wear in a lifetime if I combined them in different ways each day. It was completely out of control. And 100% emotional.

Once I figured out what I was doing, the clothes all went away. All of them. I couldn’t stand to look at them anymore. These things I’d been collecting and wearing and obsessing over for days, weeks, months…out the door.

It wasn’t the first time. As evidenced by the not-a-typewriter on my desk it wasn’t the last time. At least now I force myself to wait a few weeks before giving in to the desire.

And really, all said and done, I like this little tchotchke more and more the longer it’s there. The more I look at it, the less cheap it looks, the more like the pictures I saw online, the more like exactly what I wanted to make my desk in the guest room feel more like a desk in my office. The more validating it becomes. Cause really isn’t that what the fuss was all about?

_{This post was written as a thirty minute writing exercise, no editing, no stopping and was inspired from a writing prompt in Bryan Collins’ “Yes, You Can Write!” book available here.}