Without Guilt

I was scrolling a website this morning looking at a pair of jeans.

They were a whopping $378, made from what appeared to be sacred Japanese cotton (I added the sacred part, lol), and cut like the seventies. I’ve looked at these jeans more than once. And I sat there doing the thing I’ve done my entire life, which is running the math on whether I’m allowed.

It isn’t really about the money. Money is a respectable excuse, and I’ve hidden behind it for years. If somebody handed me the jeans free and clear, I’d still feel something tighten.

What I want is to have them without guilt.

And somewhere in the scrolling it finally became clear.

I’ve been waiting for the “life”. The version that would finally make a woman like me obviously entitled to a pair of jeans like that.

So I did the math on that idea, and it fell apart in about ten seconds.

I work every day, weekends included sometimes. I’ve built a practice, a channel, a brand. I have a marriage I’d walk through fire for. I have my health. By any measure I set for myself twenty years ago, I am well past the line.

And yet still, it has never issued the permission to indulge. To buy the thing I really, really want (despite how ludicrous the cost is). Every time I got close, the requirements moved.

Here’s what I had to admit, sitting there with an open browser.

I’m already her… that woman on my screen, wearing those fucking flare jeans. She’s not made up. The desire is just a declaration that she already exists somewhere between space and time ready to be made real.

She is the woman doing all of this right now, today. And I have been un-seeing her every single morning.

That word is the one I keep coming back to. Un-seeing. She is standing right there in the mirror, and I look straight at her and take her out of the picture (and I do it on purpose… it takes effort). I have been working hard at not seeing her for a very long time.

So I’m done. It’s time to stand out. To be important. To let people talk about me behind my back and keep walking.

You might have your own version of these “jeans”. Maybe it’s not about a label or price tag. It could be showing more of your leg, or wearing a tube top for goodness sake. Only you know, and if you know, you know.

So today, PUT ON one piece that belongs to the woman doing your actual life, and say the sentence to the mirror first. It feels f*ing good to be HER.