“Dear God, I don’t know how busy you are. Also, I know I don’t talk to you much. But I want those grey Lululemon leggings all the other girls have at school. I tried to ask Dad, but he said I’d be better off going to Goodwill than asking him. So, if you have any time to spare from whatever else you’re doing… please either give my dad a hundred dollars and the urge to buy me those leggings or put a pair in the Goodwill a few blocks away. Thanks, God.”
I’d speak a variation of this prayer into existence most nights throughout my adolescence. When my father would invite me to sift through our nearest Goodwills, I grew agitated that my prayers hadn’t been answered. A voice in the back of my mind told me it was because I wasn’t religious. I thought that maybe if I hadn’t stopped attending church when I was five, I could get my hands on the Lululemon Align™ High-Rise Pant in the color Heathered Graphite Grey.
Throughout my childhood, I found solace in cheaper knock-offs. However, I feared that someone might question why my clothes looked a little different than everyone else’s. Sometimes, I’d consider that maybe I was overthinking it. The memory of a boy in the fourth grade making fun of my second-hand shoes until I had to go home crying convinced me otherwise.
From a young age, I was aware that my family’s financial standing differed from that of my peers. If the lack of Lululemon leggings in my closet didn’t prove it, it was the dinner plates consisting of random ingredients that amounted to a sadder version of a Girl Dinner. My friends never mentioned that their family was missing utility payments and had to help their father sell things on eBay to make extra cash.
As I write this, I’m retroactively grateful for the health and life that my family was full of. Nonetheless, I won’t lie and tell you that was on my mind as a teenager. I was so angry. Why couldn’t I have all the things other people had? Everything I owned had lived a life before it was with me. Nothing was truly my own.
It’s ironic how I yearned to call something mine yet demanded it be what everyone else had.
Growing up in a lower-income, immigrant household taught me that survival precedes desire. All of my wants were filtered through practicality. Did I really need this? My family stopped celebrating holidays such as Christmas or birthdays due to the pressure of gift-giving. Our only tradition is my father telling me he didn’t have the money to get me a gift yet, but he’ll make sure I get something in the next few days. It was always a lie, but his intentions grew to be enough for me.
I was conditioned to believe I had to be grateful for what I had. I should never ask for more because it was selfish. And even so, that desire never really went away. My verbal pleas fell silent while my thoughts were rampant.
Now that I make my own money, I buy things without needing someone’s permission. At first, I did feel guilty. Every purchase I made was accompanied by the weight of my parents’ sacrifices. It reminded me of how my father would leave in the evening to drive for Uber, returning after I left for school, all while my stepmom had left before I woke up to clean houses all day.
But this is how I heal the little girl who would steal glances at store displays, making mental notes of what she would buy one day. I freely let her have the things she couldn’t have before. I do not throw money away. I invest in my happiness while retaining the financial responsibility I was raised with. Giving to myself doesn’t mean ignoring the hardships my parents endured; it means I am finally capable of caring for the version of myself who went without.
Battling consumer culture is another hurdle I’ve encountered. Many believe that unnecessary purchases are shallow or reflective of the importance one puts on the environment. I try to navigate it all through sustainable practices while prioritizing my well-being. I will calm years of unrelenting desire while remaining conscious of my actions.
With all of that said, I know that buying things won’t fix everything. There’s a line between reclaiming abundance for yourself and falling into an endless consumer cycle. Some remain stuck as children wanting to belong; only now they’ve been given a credit card and a misconstrued perception of healing oneself. As much as I want to give back to myself endlessly, I tread lightly to not tie my worth to what I have.
It’s a balance I learn to keep with every passing day. I will not mindlessly consume. I purchase with intention. My spending habits are not dictated by fleeting trends and content creators deciding what I need. I choose what to buy based on what will add to my life, not just my closet.
Maybe it’s a bit indulgent or impractical at times. But so what? I grew up feeling like I was wired to have nice things yet incapable of doing so. I yearn to own. I yearn to travel the world. I ache to show others how much I love them through extravagant gifts.
I will start a new tradition of giving my parents gifts every Christmas and birthday. I will save money and provide them with the things I know they want. Deep inside, I know that my father was next to me at those Goodwills, wishing what he longed for was there too.
But he remained silent. My parents didn’t immigrate to buy things. They came here to survive.
They came to a country that promised opportunity but delivered it at the cost of exhausting hours and the constant worry about making rent and keeping food on the table. There wasn’t time to think about wants when their existence was dedicated to needs. They crossed borders and built a life from scratch, carrying with them the unshakable belief that it was worth it as long as their children had more than they did.
And I did. I had more. Not always the things I wished for, but enough to get by. Enough to know I was loved. Enough to know that even if my parents couldn’t afford to give me everything, they would have in a heartbeat if they could.
Now that I can, I want to give them everything.
I will splurge. I will indulge. I will buy things I don’t need — for myself, for the people I love, for the child I once was, for the parents who gave up so much so that I could have the life they dreamed of. I will do it all, and I will not apologize for it.