The big oily belly of consumer grief
It's been just under four months since I graduated and things have begun to settle. It was never going to be a 100% fulfilling routine but I knew how this next year was going to look - it was going to be, well and truly, work.
So many people have come to me to express the same sentiment that I'm still so young (I turned 22 a few days ago, hear ye), time is practically infinite and I'm still within the range of young-adulthood where mistakes can be made and time can be wasted. It got annoying hearing the same things over and over, but it was a necessary reminder, I've spent so much time stressing over the future and feeling almost paralysed by the lack of power I currently have to steer myself towards the future I want. When each of those adults reminds me to live in the present, and that I can afford to do so, it'd do them a discredit to sit begrudgingly at my desk rehashing the same visa plans to my partner while figuring out the most miserable master plan to get rich quick, and then lay helpless each day because the only good thing about master plans is the idea of them. The absolute grandeur leaves me breathless.
But that was then and this is now
With the future mostly subdued in my head, I've found a bit more peace in my circumstances. Still, there's some things that really tear me apart and it all comes back to consumption. I'm not really sure what to begin with, so I guess I'll start with work.
The job role is simply to put people onto phone contracts, but we also deal with account queries and whatever else. We're not trained to nor expected to be technicians, but we're tech savvy enough that it's always an extra step towards building rapport between customers and our company. I grew up around noughties tech, which might make some readers chuckle (sorry, I wasn't there for the Y2K scare), but the point stands that I'm decent at troubleshooting devices.
A woman came in with a camera software issue we couldn't fix, we advised her to factory reset her phone. Somehow the thought of a factory reset still brings me so much anxiety, even though I know what a backup is. When she came back to us a few days later, she said she did the reset but was having some issues that my co-worker dealt with. As he did, two minutes of silence filled the shop floor (Armistice day) and I got that familiar physical reaction: immediate warmth; a total blessing with how cold the shop gets but a direct result of my anxiety. Almost at tears, my bowels almost giving way.
It was the most unpleasant feeling in the world to feel at work, but a direct result of the fear of a damn factory reset and with it, the fear of loss. A lot of people come in a lose access to accounts, data, etc., and many of them shrug and move on. And yet I burden myself with grief on their behalf. The funniest thing here was that she later made an off-hand comment that she had backed up her photos to the computer, and that everything on that phone was almost entirely back to how it was. I grieved for nothing.
It's self-indulgent how I see myself in everyone
When I got my new phone a few weeks ago, I knew the data transfer process like the back of my palm, and yet that same anxiety flooded me. Would my phone number fully transfer to this new sim? Would all my data still be here? And then I grieved for my old phone, and couldn't shake the anxiety off for the better half of a week.
This was something I talked at length about with my therapist, who indeed thought it was odd how worked up I got over a new phone. People like getting something fresh and cool. But I was so caught up in the assumption that something awful would happen, the thought that I had no right to that purchase, and atoning for the overconsumption I engaged in at university. The latter primarily came from the rush of receiving a hefty loan and financial independence but now a lot of purchases make me incredibly anxious.
The only times I don't feel that guilt is when I go to this little small business market in town, it makes me feel really good supporting them and taking home something made or curated with love. In the case of this new phone, it was an upgrade, barely a dent in my pay and a necessary purchase - my old one's battery was beginning to struggle and I have a trip in December I wouldn't want it to fail on me during. Those reasons directly conflicted with the underlying expectation of myself to make do with what I have, that it would be self-indulgent to make another investment in myself. My therapist helped me break down all these thoughts and recognise where all my fear lay. I'm mostly over it now, but that was a really rough week for me.
I'll still hold attachment to everything
A few days ago, I had to finally address the mould accumulating on my windowsill. Condensation and all that gross, cold humidity stuff. With it, I kind of had to face the music regarding the pile that had also accumulated on that windowsill. Picture frames, used and unused, unrecoverable from the mould infestation all because I was too overwhelmed with the remnants of my overconsumption. I had to toss those out, those which had pictures we still have back ups of everywhere else, but still left an uneasy feeling inside of me. Maybe I could've recovered them, or properly sought out a sustainable method of waste disposal.
Similarly, there was this fun mask of woven branches that my partner found on his trip to Germany a few years ago. I held onto it. At this point in time, that mask was also mouldy and unrecoverable. And, much like the picture frames, I wasn't making any use out of it at any point soon. I had to finally bin it, and that was what broke me in that instance. I knew holding onto all these things was contributing to the overcrowded environment, I knew that I had to eventually address all of that, I knew I had become the consumed.
This thread helped me to calm down a bit as I realised I wasn't alone in feeling such a huge reaction from the essential decluttering process. There are some things in my room definitely fit for donation or recycling, but some things I have to show my gratitude towards and simply let go. Landfills aren't as much an individuals shortcomings as they are a result of wider government ignorance. It doesn't excuse my past carelessness, but it eases the pressure, and that's kind of what I needed in that moment.
It then reminded me of something I heard on Instagram a couple months ago, along the lines of, "financial mistakes are financial lessons." I don't really want to toss my money onto a roulette table and then call it a lesson, but that line of thinking helps me become more aware of my ability to do better in the future. When faced with moving everything out of my third-year accommodation and back into the family home, I stood face to face with all those mistakes. Window shopping doesn't feel as gratifying anymore. I'm just here picking up the pieces. The newfound discipline is great, I just wish I wouldn't fall into a panic over fucking picture frames.
The elderly customers here like to joke about how little they use their phone, "some people are at so attached! It's like an extension of themselves." I just have to nod and laugh, but if I lost everything on my phone, I'd be in mourning.
Reply via email! ✰ First published 10/11/2024 and last modified 9 months, 4 weeks ago.