New Skin
(a personal piece)
I did not know this about breakups — that your clothes would betray you.
It is weird how fabric holds onto things. At least the ones in my wardrobe do.
That sweater. I see it in every photo from last winter, worn to dinners I thought were building toward something permanent. Now it just reminds me of everything I have lost and cannot get back. It is not even bittersweet anymore. Just bitter.
Everything in my wardrobe now seems to itch and makes me feel wrong in my own skin.
Walter Benjamin writes about how objects become vessels for our personal histories. Well, now my vessels are full and they hold memories I want to escape from.
I am wincing at the bills, but I feel desperate. I want trousers that had not boarded that flight. Sweaters that have never been to all those places. Shoes with no mileage.
They call it retail therapy like it is something to be ashamed of. Yes, it is a first-world indulgence. But sometimes self-love has a price tag.
Benjamin would get this! He says objects carry their own histories, how they are never just things but what we have lived through. Maybe that is why starting over feels so necessary.
Perhaps it is excessive. But it is the kind of excess that feels like survival, not luxury. This is my small revolution. My exodus.
Each new piece a small promise that I am whole. Whole without you, even when my heart still aches.
A new skin has never felt so fitted. Yay.
新皮
原來關係破裂之後，連衣服都會背叛你。
原來衣物會記事。至少我的會。
那件毛衣。去年冬天的照片裡總有它，穿去那些我以為會一直繼續下去的晚餐。現在看到它，只會想起那些再也回不去的時光。連苦樂參半都不是了。只剩苦澀。
現在衣櫥裡什麼都不對勁，穿什麼都不像自己。
Walter Benjamin說過，物件會成為個人歷史的載體。可是我的載體太滿了，滿是我想逃離的回憶。
看帳單的時候忍不住倒抽一口氣，但我已經顧不了那麼多。我要！我要沒搭過那班飛機的褲子。沒去過那些地方的毛衣。全新的鞋。
人們說這叫購物療癒，語氣裡帶著不以為然。沒錯，這是人的任性。但有時候，對自己好是要付出代價的。
Benjamin一定會懂的！他說物件有自己的歷史，從來不只是東西那麼簡單，而是我們活過的證據。
或許是有點過分。但這種過分讓我覺得是在求生，不是在揮霍。這是我的小小革命。我的大大逃亡。
每件新衣都在唱著我的完整。
終於有了合身的新皮。真好。
“ownership is the most intimate relationship that one can have to objects. Not that they come alive in him; it is he who lives in them”
— Walter Benjamin, “Unpacking My Library”