sorry, i'm a process

21 May, 2025

A week or so ago, I went to the mall with my family and headed to the school supplies section. This is just one of the things I do, even though I’m not a student anymore and would not actually need most of the stuff that were on the shelves. It’s a feel-good sort of place to be when you’re in the mall, in my opinion, but I really just go there for the notebooks.

I like ruled notebooks and ones with a bit more GSM than the standard for when you take notes in school or any other everyday notebook. That is to say, at this age and since a long time ago, I’ve always regarded notebooks as something close to books, in a way that they are as indisposable, and that I am never, ever in a hurry to write in them. I let the empty pages stay empty for years, and it’d be okay and would never see it as a waste. They are just fine and pretty, written or not.

Anyway, back at the mall, I saw a plain black A5 notebook with ruled pages of 120 sheets, if I recall correctly. I didn’t get a chance to feel the weight of each page but with its overall appearance it looked minimalistic and very cool. I found it the kind that would go perfectly with my collection. I scanned it for several minutes and felt it whole, and well. Like how I am with everything, I started thinking of the cost and what category it would fall under in my monthly budget.

As it turns out, it didn’t fall anywhere and in that sense my brain started telling me how a luxury it would be if it was paid for by unallocated money. And did I deserve such luxury? Did I do anything worth rewarding myself for this week? The trip to this part of the mall is as unplanned as it is. It looked really good, though, and they seem to have enough stock for it to last until next month and I’d have the chance to put it in my June budget if I happen to go to the mall again.

Long story short, I didn’t buy the notebook.

It was 200 PHP. I once read somewhere to equate the things you buy with how much hours you’d work to buy them, just to gain a bit of perspective. I only have to work an hour and 15 minutes to buy that notebook, so it wasn’t even a matter of affordability. Again, I have chickened out into doing something nice for myself! This is what a part of my brain calls an exercise of discipline and it sure does get quite convenient when it’s done with depriving myself of what I know is what I want or need.

These rules, man. I know I’ve made it a goal long ago to save money, but this is who I am on a random Thursday. I just wanted to rehash this and admit to myself it has happened way too many times. Hopefully no blog police is here to call me out on only coming online whenever I want to complain something about myself, but I realize it’s what’s been happening a few posts ago. Unfortunately, I do not have generational wealth, and this would be very much solved if I had it. So what I will and can do now is to tell everyone here about my shopping list and hopefully I can get to them in the next month with allocated money and all.

And that’s it! Look at that, I now feel compelled to write an update if I get through my list in the next month. It could be like a whole let me tell you about my haul post.

Just a quick life update, I’m still on the night shift and I got sick a few days ago. I’m still kicking and the elections just ended here in my country. With that and being on the lookout for Sunrise on the Reaping casting announcements and watching Valorant clips, I’ve been on social media much more and more these days and I completely forgot that I have a blog and an email. What’s most important is that I didn’t forget my Bear blog password. So I also just want to get that out now to make myself aware.

I have to write this whole post to prevent myself from chickening out when I buy stuff for myself next time. I’m a process and it’s a process to unlearn some things about my relationship with money. Thanks for being here and it has been some time (!!) Please feel free to give me book or life behavior suggestions (advice).

#2025 #life