“You have no reason to feel like that because it’s not who you are,” Jon said.
Jon is my boyfriend. Jon is very positive. I was expecting him to send me a “lol” back or a “yeah, right” when I told him my plan. (This is what I would have said. I can be “not” so positive at times.) But instead, he acted like I didn’t have a problem. Oh, little does he know . . . because, well, I do most of my shopping alone, which is what most women do. And then when someone says, “Is that new?” A borderline-shopaholic’s response would be: “What? This old thing? Or, yes, and it was on clearance (It wasn’t on clearance.).”
I would need more than Jon’s positivity to get me through this year. I needed motivation.
“Wanna turn this into a bet?” I asked him over a glass of wine. (You will hear about wine a lot for the next 11.5 months.)
Immediately, his positivity turned into opportunity. “Yes! What are we playing for?”
Jumping Together
I had had something in the back of my mind for a while, so I instantly responded: “If for one year, I buy no new clothing, the next time we go on a trip and there is a very very very large cliff to jump off of, you have to jump with me,” I said.
He didn’t respond right away, which I expected. Jon is not a fan of heights. (I knew this of course.) “How high?”
“However high that cliff is.”
He took a gulp of $5 malbec that I had picked out. (I choose base on label interest. Yeah, it doesn’t always work out. FYI, roosters don’t make good wine.) “Umm, ok, then you have to do the Polar Plunge,” he said.
Jon may hate heights, but I hate the combination of cold and water. My students have been trying to get me to do the Polar Plunge since I began working at Globe. I had told Jon I hated the idea of running into the freezing Mississippi so much so that I would plan trips just to avoid it. The event is for a great cause, to raise money for the Special Olympics, but I just can’t bear to join all the crazy people diving into body-numbing water.
But, then again, who am I to call them crazy? I’m not buying any clothes for a year.
the Clothing Fast Project 