Industrial Lust

Oh no. It's coming back again. That horrible lust after some material thing or another that makes me always picture the object of my desire in my head and feel like I could just have it (or more of it) then it would solve everything that brings me down and make me happy. I was just getting over the clothing thing, too.

This time it's sweets and fancy tea and tea sets, which are at least more obtainable than lolita clothes. So not quite as pernicious a fascination, and one that I can view a bit more reasonably. I am and was last summer in no position to buy up craploads of dressy clothes to actually see if they made me feel better, but I know from experience that if I binge on sweets they will give me a headache and make me feel generally crappy, no matter how high quality they are. Sugar is sugar.

Yet when I don't have them I still kind of want them. It comes and goes (and when it's at its worst and I just feel like shoving food in my mouth I know better than ever that it won't actually help--part of me just wants to.) I'm learning that it's not *actually* the sweets I want, but that they symbolize something. In this case, I think they're an escape. They remind me of drinking afternoon tea while I was traveling in the UK in beautiful tea rooms, or of having currently-an-ocean-away friends over and talking over tea and snacks. Plus they're just pretty. Comforting.

What I really want is relief. I'm not even all that busy--but I still feel pressure (when it's not pressure to quit putting my homework off, it's pressure to get enough sleep and go to bed at a decent hour so I can wake up in time to go out and do things. Or anticipated pressure at staying within my food budget which would be fine if I didn't buy expensive sweets XD. So things that I don't really imagine going away, basically.) And I guess when my brain feels like I'm not doing enough to alleviate that pressure, it gives me the same need coded as something else that's easier to obtain. Not surprising, I guess. Probably a lot of people (if not most) think that way. What about you, reader? What do the material things you want mean to you?