Goodwill to me.

I've been thinking about Goodwill lately. Not "peace on earth, goodwill to all ('men' is a poor translation, by the way!)" but the Goodwill. I went through sort of a thing in the spring, and by "thing" I mean some sort of revelation or life-changing epiphany.

I love clothes. Always have. We have pictures of me at two, three, four years old, looking happy to be wearing my own spiffy concoction of skirt, lacy shirt, cowboy boots, bikini top. You know what I mean. I still love clothes...I often had though that if I had kajillions of dollars, I would buy myself some obscenely expensive shoes first of all, and then a suit that was made just for my own self by some fabulous person in Italy.

But...the epiphany. I had known of this little thing called "justice" and another thing called "child labor" for quite a while, but I was in denial, being a person who loved clothes with little funds. I felt like I had no choice but to buy things with labels that say, "Made in Bangladesh" or "Made in Myanmar" although I have childhood friends who came from there, and I know that almost certainly a woman or child getting paid not much made them for me to buy for an unfairly cheap price.

This all sort of started crashing down on me, at the ripe age of 30.

What to do? I have less funds, having gone from part-time to extremely part-time, and sometimes not at all. I still love clothes and can't stand to look bad at things that are important to me...weddings, preaching gigs, parties, etc.

A solution came to me, and it is the only solution I could think of that encompasses all of these: my love for clothes, love for shopping, cheapo budget, saving the earth, and not causing my buddies and their children across the sea (or here at home) to make clothes for me for an unfair wage.

GOODWILL. It helps that I live in an affluent area, so the Goodwill harbors treasures that are just amazing. I try to only shop there, actually. I don't talk about it too much, hence the blog, because truth be told, I don't always want to explain that I'm not just a cheapskate...it's about so many other things. So I shop there for my clothes, and I'm dressing just as well (or better) than I ever have. And I feel like, in a teeny way, I'm doing more of my part to bring justice on the earth. When I grow up (or my kids do) I'll be an activist, but today, I'll just shop at the Goodwill.