Hi, my name is Sarah and I’m a shopaholic. 

I don’t know if this is really the right definition of a shopaholic, but I think my only saving grace is that I know that I can’t afford the things I truly covet.  I long to feel the soft leathery goodness of a Coach purse in my hands.  I would love to own a beautiful pair of Christian Louboutin shoes with the trademark red soles; I long for these even though I would most likely never wear them because I’m about as graceful as a linebacker in high heels.  I drool at the thought of possessing anything with the Tiffany insignia on it, preferably draped in diamonds and a platinum setting. 

I see the finer things and realize that I will never in a million trillion years ever be in possession of them.  I refuse to go into some really serious debt for these things.  I know this, and yet…

I stalk the pages of eBay wondering if anyone would be willing to part with these treasures at some kind of discounted price.  I flip through the pages of Amazon hoping that there is a way that these beautiful baubles could be mine.  I look through Craig’s List to see if someone is going through a bad break up, rejected marriage proposal or the final purge of their possessions in the hope that someone will pay enough for them to be able to pay a bill or two while they wait for another job comes along.  I am hoping that someone else’s misfortune could benefit me in some way, shape or form.  That just feels wrong.

My desire for finer things has never put me in possession of them.  I have a small Coach clutch, but I’m pretty sure that it is fake.  The price I paid for it would tell me that this is a fact.  Yet I still treasure it deeply, because in my heart I believe that it just might be a real Coach purse.  It’s like everytime I would go to a flea market believing that I had found the Prada paradise and hit a jackpot only to realize that there is no way in hell that a real Prada purse would sell for $50, and then still have the label fall off like two hours after the purchase. 

My Amazon page is a testament to the things I would love to get my grubby little hands on.  It is filled with purses, jewelery, make up, books, movies, CD’s, video games, electronics and collectibles that I will not be able to get anytime in the near future but I still look at them online anyway.  I get emails from Amazon, eBay and Overstock.com telling me that if I liked this item then I might like this other item.  Well, of course I would but that doesn’t mean that I could afford to buy either of those things.  No matter how much it’s price has been reduced, it’s still out of the affordable price range. 

Therefore in order to absolve myself of the pain of not being able to afford designer items, I go to my Holy Lands (Ulta, Sephora, Target, etc.) and load up on things not designer but not off brand either. 

I can’t seem to make myself go cheap on my make-up.  I’ve tried, but once I found something that I loved it was too hard to go back.  Since I can no longer afford the make-up that I know and love, I squirrel it away and save it for special occasions choosing to leave the house it cheap imitation or none at all.  I continue to buy expensive nail polish for reasons that I can’t really justify other than loving the particular colors that are available.  It’s not like I’m doing my own nails so I can’t say that I’m spending more because it covers better because let’s face it, I’m going to go home after getting my nails done and add another coat of the color anyway just because I don’t think it’s dark enough or covered enough.  It’s what I do.  The worst part is, I think I only use these colors once or twice a year and that is becoming less and less due to the fact that I continue to buy more and more every year.  

I buy more anti-aging stuff than I most likely need, but I tell myself that I have nice, soft wrinkle free skin because of the serums, lotions and creams that I have been buying since I turned 25.  I have at least eight different kinds of hand and body lotions because I’m determined to find the perfect balance between silky soft and non greasy.  None of it is scented either because I’m allergic to anything with scent in it.  Yet when I got my two recent tattoos and the guy told me to use lotion after the two days of Neosporin cream, I went to my local Walgreens and I bought new lotions because I didn’t want to do anything to ruin the tattoos.  Yeah, the eight I already had at home would have been just fine. 

I hated Crocs when I first saw them.  Then I tried on and bought one pair.  Now I basically have them in every color in the rainbow.  Plus those little hole fillers to go with them.  I wasn’t able to stop at one color that would work with everything I own.  No, I had to have a color that represented my favorite football teams and my favorite colors.  Then I had to have the Jibbitz to again represent my favorite football teams, hobbies, holidays, activities, animals and of course cartoon characters.  Of course because I’m a freak like this, I couldn’t wear the shoes that are good year round so I bought the Croc sandals.  It never stops.  It’s a vicious circle.   

I still buy books when I live within comfortable walking distance of my local library (and it’s not like I don’t have the comfortable shoes to get me there).  I don’t go because I still feel anger towards the way that working in a library made me feel.  Again, my Amazon account is a testament to this reading bender that I tend to go on.  I continue to buy TV show seasons on DVD even though I didn’t particularly enjoy them when they were actually on TV.  I look at my stacks and piles and shelves lined with these things.  I read/watch them all once and then put them away never to look at them again, but because I enjoy the thrill that owning them gives me, I won’t part with them. 

I buy jewelry so often that you would think that I’m actually buying it to wear it somewhere.  I have more necklaces, earrings, watches and rings than I actually know what to do with.  Every time I buy a new one, I take the last one I was wearing and I put it away in one of my (get ready for it) eight jewelery boxes.  These items are rarely ever seen again until I’m looking at all the places where I stash jewelery and then wonder what the hell is in them.  I go through them, look at them, remember and then either trash the chains that are broken/tangled or put everything back to be forgotten about for another year. 

My shopping compulsion is a dedication to excess.  All because I love the momentary thrill that buying these items gives me.  It’s usually when I get up to the check out counter that the buyers remorse begins.  Yeah, I haven’t even bought them yet, and the remorse begins.  You think that I would take that as a sign to, I dunno, put everything back.  No, instead I stand there sweating over it and second guessing my choices.  Wondering if I should; put away the wallet because I already love the wallet that I own, or put away the big jar candle because I already have six back ups at home and only four rooms to put them in, or the pen because what am I going to do with a disposable pen when I have beautiful refillable pens waiting for me in both my purse and at home.  And then I realize that I’m next and it’s basically too late to leave the line now (no, it really isn’t) so I go ahead and make the purchases only to immediately go home and hide what I’ve done from my husband.  The idea of returning the items really never enters my mind, because that would just be too embarrassing.   By the way, those items only get hidden for like a day and then I get too excited over them again and end up showing everything to him one at a time on different days, but never ever in the same week because I can’t let him now how bad the addiction has gotten. 

It doesn’t matter if I bought every single one of those things on sale or clearance or at a closing out price.  The fact is that I bought them.  I bought something stupid and useless when I could have bought something that we really needed.  Even telling myself that I bought the stuff that we needed before I bought stupid and useless first doesn’t relieve the guilt that I feel for buying the items in the first place.  The fact that I get a rush when I go grocery shopping with my husband and knowing that I snuck in something that’s just for me, is enough.  I stand there at the check out with him none the wiser while I sweat over whether or not he’s going to see my humidity resistant hair spray (um, yeah right) and say anything about it and when he doesn’t, I feel the rush. 

I guess I should be happy that this isn’t a drug addiction or alcohol addiction, but still…

So I guess what I’m trying to say is, what gets your heart racing?