The List of Wants and Needs

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A bundle of fresh flowers is my little, bi-weekly extravagance.

A wise woman once told me that it’s okay to partake in a little something special….just for me.

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Once upon a time….

There was an extraordinary woman who knew her days were numbered.  And, she had a story to share.  Now.  Not later.  With carefully chosen words and close attention to the most descriptive details, this woman vividly described a pair of ornate, bejeweled, orange slippers.

As the sequence of events progressed, the woman told how she studied the price tag on the shoebox.  Too expensive for me – she thought.  There was no way that she could or would justify spending that much on herself.  After all, she didn’t really need new shoes.

Another week went by…and that meant another trip to the shoe store.  Secretly she hoped the slippers would be gone for good and sold to a stranger before she arrived.  But nope.  The beautiful shoes were still there waiting for this woman to take them home.

The allure of the shoes grew stronger.  She tried them on and walked around  admiring these one-of-a-kind shoes in the floor-level mirror.  Perfect fit.  And without another thought, she stuffed them back into the shoebox…and onto the shelf they went.

This became her weekly ritual.  The wanting.  Then, the denial.  And she understood that she could, in fact, afford these shoes.  She knew her husband would be delighted that his wife did something nice for herself.  So what was the problem?

Well, this woman was careful with her family’s finances beyond imagination.  She was a wise woman with no mortgage, paid cash for new cars, and completely debt-free.  Her family grew their own produce making her grocery bill miniscule.  She did not owe anyone – anything – on any day of the week.

But there really was a problem.  And it wasn’t the woman’s frugality.  This woman took great pride as a simple person who successfully lived a back-to-the-basics life.  So many moms put their name last on The List of Needs and Wants;  but, this woman never bothered to include her name at all.  She became very good at self-denial of life’s little extras.

Then one day, she came to the realization that she, too, deserved a small treat every so often.  She knew that extravagance or over-indulgence would never be an issue with her.  So one day, she marched into that store to get those orange slippers.  She visualized herself walking home in those most perfect shoes.

The woman’s eyes frantically scanned each row of footwear.

But they were gone.

The orange slippers had been sold.

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As the woman told this story, there was not an ounce of sadness or regret.  It was a lesson she wanted to pass on to another generation of young women – young moms.  She had no remorse for the loss of those coveted slippers, not at all.  This woman’s only goal in reliving the story (on one of her last days on earth) was to become a teacher of a very valuable lesson.

She wanted to make sure young moms remembered to put their names on The List .…and never forget that splurging once in a blue moon is not necessarily a bad thing.

I appreciated hearing that story, firsthand, from this extraordinary woman.  She was one of the smartest and most authentically generous women I have ever had the pleasure of knowing and loving. The teacher – of this lesson – was my mother.