Learning the Abandon

Lately I’ve been spending some time browsing on the Harley Davidson website and daydreaming about a purchase I would like to make next spring. Telling you that makes me feel like I should possibly explain myself a little.

It’s purely economics. My car will soon be paid off. I’ve recently had to spend some money on maintenance and repairs, so I really don’t feel like going out and getting a new car payment. I’d rather drive it until the wheels fall of it, frankly. And a motorcycle, which I could drive a majority of the time for eight months or more out of the year, gets better gas mileage than nearly everything, outside of the hybrids. That makes sense for my budget, and it does some good for the environment.

Not that this has anything to do with any midlife crisis, or me envisioning how cool I would look riding around on one of those powerful, beautiful wonders of American engineering and craftsmanship. Nor have I ever pictured myself, and how I would look in a pair of black leather chaps, either. Really, I haven’t.

The problem is—as is the case with any purchase I make, no matter how small or how large—I suffer from buyer’s remorse before I even risk any capital. I analyze (and over-analyze my different options, and I look over my budget, and I compare different makes and models, and prices of anything I am considering to buy. I will spend hours on the internet doing research, to make sure that when I do buy something, it is the absolute smartest choice for my need.

Then I ask myself if what I am about to purchase is actually a “need to have,” or a “want to have,” and a whole other round of questions and concerns crop up. I developed this habit during the lean years, and it has served me well. It has prevented a great many impulse buys. If only I could teach my daughters this same decision process.

The thought that worries me most whenever I spend money I might consider to be frivolously let loose: what is it that is sure to happen just as soon as I have handed that cash over to someone else, and may instead be needed for some sort of priority or emergency? When you have felt the sting of financial challenges or difficult times, you tend to worry this way. I always want to expect the unexpected. I always feel like the other shoe is about to drop, so to speak. I worry like this even more so when I remember that I may be the only firewall between happiness and misery for those whose care I bear responsibility.

After I have let someone pry cash from my hands, the real buyer’s remorse usually sets in, and I wrestle with that for several more days. In fact, I have been known to buy something and leave it setting on my desk for a number of days afterward, still in the unopened box and with the receipt neatly taped to it, just in case I either change my mind or have something happen that would cause me to return it and use those funds for something that is more of a priority. I never have had to return something, but I’m just certain that if I ever did break that chain of habits, my financial sky would come falling down, and I would be destitute in a matter of hours.

If all that caution remained restricted to my spending habits, it would likely be no more than frugality erring a little bit on the eccentric side. But, it doesn’t, and sometimes that causes angst in other areas of my life.

Sometimes, I will tell myself that even the simplest of enjoyments are just too good to be true. I tell myself that there must always be a tradeoff or a price to pay if something is that desirable. I see things as guilty pleasures. It doesn’t always stop me from doing them anyway, but I worry about it the entire time, and that makes whatever experience I am trying to enjoy a little diminished. It takes a little edge off the pleasure. If it is something like a trip somewhere, or a grand event, it only becomes more magnified in relation to the expense. It also becomes a part of that typical post-vacation blues I typically feel when I arrive back home and have to settle back into my normal life.

It makes me cautious, and, at times, it gets in the way of living the moment, or even enjoying the temporary bliss. Where relationships have been concerned, it has even made me somewhat inaccessible. I end up undervaluing the here and now. I forecast the eventualities and different scenarios in my head, and if it looks like it is not going to play out perfectly, or like there may be a price to pay, or that there is emotional risk involved, I withdraw my investment of time and effort; I retreat to the safety of what I can control. I’ve sometimes bailed suddenly, and even hurt someone in the process, which only adds to the things I find myself considering the next time an opportunity arises.

I should know better. Life experiences, and relationships, are not boxes I can leave on the desk with the receipt taped to them, ready to cash back in because I anticipate later regrets. As they sit there languishing in their idleness, while I choose to not pursue them or invest in them, I miss ou on the time I could have been enjoying them.

When I think back over my record of having never returned a purchase, I should probably take a lesson from that, and instead dive in from the very beginning. I should remember that I have never really been destitute because of any major purchase, and that my worries about such things are pretty small matters in this world. For all my worrying, it’s nothing like the parent somewhere who wonders where the next meal for their family is going to come from. Or the species that will quietly go out of existence today, recognized as it happens in its own collective conscience, but noticed as no more than a whisper by the rest of the world.

My concerns are small. And, in my most challenged times, I’ve never been without the love and support of a few close friends and family around me. Things work out for me, eventually, no matter how trying they seem at the time. In my privileged circumstances, life finds a way through the cracks. Maybe I should remember that more, and worry less. Or, at least worry less for myself, and reserve my concern more for others.

Anyway, I have between now and spring to convince myself of all this, and decide between the Dyna Wide Glide or the Softail Blackline. Because, it’s all about the economics, and I can’t very well park a Harley on my desk for a few days after the purchase.

© 2012 Cody Kilgore. All Rights Reserved worldwide under the Berne Convention. May not be copied or distributed without prior written permission.

The Long Way Home

I have this little exercise I put myself through anytime I feel a regret coming on, one where I try to turn the regret into something I instead appreciate. It’s kind of fun actually, to try to reverse it from the negative to the positive, and you can apply it in almost any situation. I would, however, suggest you perform this exercise the same as I, and only do this with an internal monologue.

“Why thanks, officer! I was likely going to spend that seventy-five dollars on something frivolous and wasteful, rather than have it going into the community coffers for some good. I appreciate this chance to do my civic duty, and the reminder that my driving was unsafe and too fast.”

“Nice. I am so fortunate that Totally Hot Latina Mom—who is almost always there when I pick up Kylee from school and has chatted me up a couple of times—was able to see me in my sweats, ball cap, and three-day-old beard this morning. Now I never have to worry again about her seeing me at my worst. What a relief!”

“Mr. Bathroom Scale, you are such a great friend. How else would I have ever remembered how that weekend in Kansas City (replete with Mary’s incredible cake and all those calorie-laden Stouts) was going to throw me totally off of my training plan for this year’s running season?”

See? It’s easier than you would think. And, if anyone tells you that what you are saying is a rationalization: first, turn off the volume on your inner voice, because it has escaped you, then, tell them to go away and quit eavesdropping. Your conversation with yourself, voiced or not, is a private conversation and not meant for others to hear. Then, if they are old enough, remind them of this scene from The Big Chill:

Michael: I don't know anyone who could get through the day without two or three juicy rationalizations. They're more important than sex.
Sam: Ah, come on. Nothing's more important than sex.
Michael: Oh yeah? Ever gone a week without a rationalization?

(Just a side note here: those of us old enough to quote scenes from The Big Chill are now more likely to insert longer time frames into Michael’s last statement.)

By now, I have likely convinced you, and if I have not then I probably never will. The fact of the matter is: I have instances where I still can’t convert something I regret into a benefit. Where I struggle the most is with this thing we all call Buyer’s Remorse. That one nags me for days on end after I have splurged on something.

Like many of us who have had to be more expense conscious during recent economic times, I try to minimize the splurges and stick to the necessities. Nowadays, I always ask myself if something I see in the store (and dammit, I work in one of the best) is a Need To Have, or A Want To Have. I have several motivations for this questioning of every purchase.

The primary concern is, of course, over money, the preservation of it, the need for it to be spent on essentials, and the fright I have experienced a time or two in my life of not having enough. Second to that is the desire to teach efficient and effective spending habits to Megan and Kylee. With Megan, it is likely a lost cause, because she has never seen a shoe shop or a shoe department that she could not empty of styles her size if ever given the resources. Kylee is another matter; she has control of impulse buying down pat. Lastly, I am just trying to practice less consumerism and leave as little a footprint on this planet as possible.

And a little confession for you: sometimes, when I buy something that I think is an impulse or a splurge, I leave it sitting there on the desk unopened for a while, in a pristine return state, in case I feel too guilty and get the urge to take it back. Ever do something like that?

Remarkably, one of the things in my life that I least regret is my marriage to my former wife, Michelle. But, that is probably not hard for anyone who has children to understand; I have two living, breathing little inspirations who offer me daily reminders of the meaning of my existence. Personally, I am not sure how anyone can regret a marriage that resulted in children, unless they are unable to see past their own selfishness, or is guilty of the mindboggling act of abandoning children to their spouse.

But there is more to it than that, actually. My marriage was bookended by two periods in my life which were less than rosy, and so it is framed and defined as one of the best times of my life. I know you might wonder how that could be, if it didn’t work out, but by comparison it shines. I also remember it as a time of my life—eleven years worth, to be exact—where I was a part of a complete family, and that had long been a lifetime goal of mine. Okay, so it didn’t turn out to be a lifelong achievement, but it was good while it lasted and still offers me rewards, to this day. And we’re still family, the four of us. We’re just a little different family.

Travelling home is what brings up most of my regrets lately. We have fun there, seeing friends and family, are very comfortable there, and on the drive home I inevitably begin to wonder how I ended up where I have, how I got there, why I so readily left everyone and everything behind. What would life have been like, and what have I missed out on by not being there all this time? And, almost as soon as the questions arise, I know the answers, and I know it is more than just the two other people there in the car with me.

Despite my difficulties with all things metaphysical, I still have a tendency to believe that everything happens for a reason. I could list a plethora of people, events, lessons, rewards, trials, and victories great and small, all of it being things I had to go through to be the person I am now—as we all have. Whoever I was yesterday helped me prepare for who I try to be today, the same as what I experience today will prepare me for tomorrow. Skip out on any part of it, and I am not the same person, and the same person would not experience or interpret or act or react to everything based on the perspectives formed from previous experiences. It’s a necessary chain, with each delicate link no less vital to the support and beauty of the craftsmanship than any other.

So, in short, the reason why I’ve enjoyed going home now, and why I did not get to enjoy it all those other years, was because I could not enjoy it in the way that I do now, or as the person I am now. I wasn’t ready.

© 2010 Cody Kilgore. All Rights Reserved worldwide under the Berne Convention. May not be copied or distributed without prior written permission.