What’s Your Favorite Stress Purchase?

Everybody (I think) has one.

Nothing soothes the anxious mind more than opening a tab, plopping some things in an online cart and purchasing said things without looking back. There are better ways to relieve stress — a nice walk, perhaps, or a vigorous sun salutation or two. Purchasing things I don’t quite need isn’t the best, of course, but it really does the trick. When the bank account is a little plumper than usual, the urge to spend that extra money in an attempt to quiet the thing that’s actually bothering me bubbles up, like indigestion but worse. Almost every time, I give in.

My stress purchases are few and far between, but I know what they are by how little I use them. Shirts purchased under duress for events that I thought I had to look nice for are shoved in the back of my closet; books that I thought I really wanted to read and bought with the intention of doing so sit on a particular table in my room, spines un-cracked, gathering dust. Once I’ve bought the thing, the stress abates. When the thing actually shows up, I’ve already forgotten why I was mad or sad or anxious, and try instead to piece together what the crisis was that led to the purchase. It never matters and I can never remember, anyway. The stress purchase’s importance does not lie in the end result. The quiet whoosh of the stress leaving your body when you click the button, then go to the bathroom to splash water on your face is what you’re after. Anything else afterwards is just a fun bonus.

Is it books? Is it overpriced lipstick? Is it spontaneous weekend trips or concert tickets that you thought you weren’t actually going to buy but ended up doing anyway? Is it a shower curtain that has no business costing $35? Is it a rug from a very nice rug store that you’ve been stalking for months and understand that once it’s delivered to your home, it will change your life for the better? Surely you purchase things under duress. Tell me what they are.

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