my mum has bought me the world.

she's uber-excited about me going on exchange next year to canada and so she's been preparing my wardrobe for the insane cold. and i totally will need more, and warmer, clothes. and she's right--the warm clothes will be out of the shops by mid-winter, so it's good to buy stuff now. she doesn't normally buy me clothes, but i'm crazypoor and she is happy to buy for a cause, i guess. a cause being another country, that is. and me conquering it.

but.

i am disgusted by my wealth. i walked into my room this afternoon, side-stepping the maze of stuff on the floor. clothesbagspaperbooksshoesetcetcetc. piles on piles. and i started hanging all the lovely jumpers and long-sleeve tops mum's bought me over the last few weeks. i have so many new items that half of them are still unworn, tagged, even still sitting in their colourful branded plastic bags.

and i feel guilty. the same feeling as when i watch water pour down the sink, wasted. when i can't finish dinner, so i chuck it in the bin. it hits me higher than my stomach, slightly to the left. it just doesn't make sense. why should i have more thingsthingsthings when some people--most people, even--have virtually nothing? the only thing that makes me different to the faceless, choice-less, voiceless impoverished masses is the part of the world in which i was born. just because i am sitting on the lucky side of the world.

yet when mum takes me into a shop, i want. i want things i don't need, i want a more expensive jumper than one that will simply do the job, keep me warm, i want what that girl at uni is wearing today, i want a new pair of jeans, i want a new outfit for every day. i want to keep being picky about what combination of materials i will cover my body with today. and when i try on a pair of shorts (the shorts i wore today to uni) that i don't need? and say i happen to like the look of them? i want. i ask. i stand there in the glare of the changing room lights and i ask mum to buy them for me because i have a total of forty dollars in the bank. sure, they're on special. but then i go home and i see in my room a cluttered mess of possessions. and i sit here and feel guilt fill me up.

and all the while i know that i perpetuate the cycle. i make it happen. it's me.

last weekend i went away. and when i dumped my old blue bag on my temporary bed i realised. in that jolt of the springs when it hit. i was carrying with me more than what most people own. in that small bag, stuffed with jeans and jumpers and a big fat study bible and shampoo and make-up and old shoes. more than most people own. in total. for one weekend. a weekend during which i wished more than once that i'd brought a different jumper along with me because i didn't feel 'confident' wearing the one i had. freaking confident.

i really need to get over myself.