Thoughts on shopping, bling, and being giraffes

“This is all trash. Look at this, this dress is damaged. Why are we even looking here? Hmph, such trash!”

I cocked my head to the side to inconspicuously listen to the middle-aged couple arguing at the end of the aisle. I’m pretty sure they were oblivious to my presence anyway. On and on they continued, arguing about why they were shopping at a bargain outlet. “Don’t we need something with more bling? Where is the bling on these dresses? We need bling!”

I shook my head. I wondered if they would turn around and notice me. My arms were full of dresses stacked up to my shoulder. Spilling over the side of my elbow and onto the floor.

The snide remarks whirled around inside my head. A few years ago I would have jumped in and defended the honor of my beloved clothing store. I would have explained that I was holding a thousand dollars worth of designer dresses that would total less than fifty dollars at the register.

Nah, it wasn’t worth it.

I shook my head and smiled as I looked at the outfit I had just found. An Anthropologie dress at 90% off. I was fine.

Pastor Andrew Arndt said this a couple of weeks ago: “You don’t need to justify your existence to anyone.”

And it struck a nerve with me.

How many people had I tried to justify my value to? My decisions to? My very existence to?

A lot of people.

As if them approving of my decisions made me somehow more correct. As if them affirming me gave me more value. Or perhaps it made my self-perceived failures a little more palatable.

But it had gotten tiring.

As my mom says, there’s only so much energy that you have. You can spend it trying to convince random people of your perspective, or you can put that energy toward living your life.

And Bishop TD Jakes has perhaps the best quote on this – given when asked how he responded to all of the people who criticized him. He said that a giraffe and a turtle can share the same space, but only if the giraffe doesn’t try to stoop down to the same viewpoint as the turtle.

BAM.

I’d like to get comfortable in my own skin. To where I don’t feel a need to defend every action or decision to acquaintances or strangers.  Or even to friends. I’m getting there.

And maybe that’s why I didn’t respond today. Maybe those affirmations I had been hearing finally dug in somewhere beneath the shallow surface of my journal-writing hopeful messages. Maybe they had burrowed in deeper to my lingering unconscious and formed a subtle mantra of “I’m okay. I don’t need to defend everything. My decisions are okay. My life is okay……Now back off lady, so I can get to the rest of the dresses.”

Okay, that last part was clearly not the words of Pastor Arndt or Bishop Jakes. But I’m pretty sure my mother would have approved.

Here’s to being a giraffe this week.