Written in the quiet hours of a night spent looking for something to buy, just to feel something.
I want to be beautiful because it hurts less when I am. The world tells me to be kind to myself, then hands me a cart full of serums I can’t pronounce. “Here. Fix it.”
I buy things I don’t need all the time. Sometimes it’s skincare that promises to erase texture, other times it’s little trinkets, stupid items that give me five seconds of hope. A pink lighter, a lighter that is covered in tiny plastic jewels. A tiny plush keychain I cradle like a child. A lip oil that makes me feel like I’m in a commercial instead of my body.
And then there are the digital files—tarot readings, notebook templates, a bunch of shit—I buy off Etsy. Digital files with pastel borders and vague affirmations, promising that everything I need is already inside me as if that’s comforting. As if I wasn’t already inside me every day, trying to claw my way out. I buy online courses and convince myself I’ll watch them because I paid for them, but they sit in my inbox untouched, quietly accusing me. I download games on Steam I never even open, hoping the act of purchasing will be enough to spark joy. It never is. These things promise transformation, but once they arrive, they become clutter. Both literally and emotionally.
I once used a rose quartz roller the morning after crying all night—not because I believed in energy healing or lymphatic drainage or any of that—but because my face was swollen and I didn’t want my mother to notice. There’s something quietly humiliating about holding a cold pink crystal to your puffy eyes at 9AM, pretending it’s self-care, when really, you’re just trying to erase the evidence.
Sometimes I look at my skincare shelf and I don’t see softness or healing. I see a shrine to how much I hate myself. Each product is a response to a flaw I was taught to notice. Each bottle a whispered suggestion that I’d be more lovable if I just tried a little harder. That’s what this really is, isn’t it? I’m not being “gentle with myself.” I’m performing. I’m trying to make my reflection look like someone who deserves gentleness. I’m chasing the girl who would’ve been soft, pretty, unbothered. The one who didn’t grow up fast, who didn’t have to survive anything. The one who didn’t have texture.
I used to think I was a collector. I said it like it made me interesting—Monster High dolls, porcelain dolls, Littlest Pet Shop figures, albums, books. Things that felt like portals, like they could anchor me somewhere. But one day, my therapist looked at me and said, “Collectors don’t behave like you do. They don’t need their objects the way you do.” And it hit me. I wasn’t preserving beauty or nostalgia. I was clinging to things because I couldn’t say goodbye. I was trying to stop time. Every item I bought felt like it held a version of me that almost made it. And once the object was in my room, in my hands, I didn’t feel joy—I felt a weird sense of duty. Like I had to keep it, protect it, let it testify that I was real at the time I bought it.
Even with clothes, it’s never just retail therapy. I have so many pieces I never wear because I bought them in a rush of imagined future confidence. “Maybe I’ll feel better in this when I lose five kilograms.” “Maybe I’ll grow into this version of myself.” The truth is, I rarely do. But I can’t get rid of them either. Letting go of them feels like admitting that version of me is never coming.
So no, I’m not healing. I’m just buying things. And when I come home, I’m not met with transformation—I’m met with clutter. The kind that spills out of drawers and also sits behind my eyes. I keep hoping the next purchase will fix it. That it’ll make me feel soft or deserving or complete.
But it never does.
If this resonates with you, you could also like my pain’s format concerns me only.
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