My New Purse and Wallet Combined, a Lanyard, Downsizing Continues . . .

I'm guessing I was a teenager when I first started carrying a purse with a wallet. Now, 30 years later in my forties, I gave up my purse & wallet carrying ways and downsized to a lanyard.

It cracks me up to think of the hundreds of dollars, or more, I spent on purses and wallets over the past 30 years. And now to only have a lanyard with a key chain, it holds everything I need (bankcard, marina gate key-card, license, library card, museum card, boat insurance card, co-op card, and a grocery rewards card), it is the exact opposite of social expectations I was used to.

In our society, women are expected to carry a purse & wallet, and men carry a wallet. This is just how it is. Retailers advertise this in various repetitive ways. When I was a shopper I used to go to the local department store and drool over the new line of purses with matching wallets. It was like these were toys we had to have to be cool and look good. The logo was everything, and if it began with certain letters that meant you were socially higher and probably more economically stable and richer than others. Ironically, as I experienced myself and watched others do, the people who had these purses with logos where not economically stable or socially higher or richer. We got stuck in a trap, suckered into over-spending to show a certain fake facade to others. Billions of us did it, and we made some people very rich.

I sort of climbed this mountain throughout the past 30 years, lets call it Mt. Social Norms. I started at the bottom not exactly sure if I was gonna make it to the top, because after all only certain people made it there and had the nice things. I got to the foothills of this mountain it was foggy, I got lost and confused, incurred some debt. I kept going higher and higher, the bills stacked up, then altitude got me and I passed out. When I awoke there were billions of others laying next to me, and only a few made it to the top of Mt. Social Norms. Those that made it came down to us and told us don't bother trying to get up there because we weren't the right kind of person, and they already took their stake in it and to just go back down to the bottom. Upset at this we stayed there in that high altitude area, determined to prove them wrong, every now and then passing out dazed and confused from those high altitudes. In time, some just left, but others they stayed and are still trying.

For me, I got too sick of that mountain and headed down fast. And I never looked back because it felt so good to be away from it. They can have that stinking mountain because I prefer to be a happy outcast, rather than a miserable climber pushed down by society.

Now when I leave the boat or car I sometimes want to reach for my purse, it is habit; or when I leave some place I am looking for my purse. Then I look down and find relief because it is hanging on my neck, phew! I cannot believe how easy it is to carry only a few items of importance and have them hanging on your neck. Maybe it's not the most expensive, or prettiest, or socially acceptable, but it works for me.