This Writer's Confession

It starts with sweaty palms, dry mouth and butterflies deep in my stomach. That anxious stir of excitement, that desire. Of eyes too big for what’s good for me. Then, a slight twitch. Reaching out, but knowing, knowing…no, I don’t need. I can live without. Oh, but…I want. I want real bad. Maybe, just maybe, I do need just one, tiny little….just something.

It happens every time. I try to prepare myself. I do. I have long talks with myself. I try to be smart. I write out lengthy pros and cons. I try to close my eyes when I see ads, or store displays. I call my support group. Plead with my husband. Ask my sons to hold me back…Please!

And I’ve been so good…for so long. Darn near, ten months. I’ve walked away. Even at flea markets ground bottom prices. I know where to look. (Only one slip. Honest. The price was just unbelievable. Promise.)

This obsession, this…addiction has had me in its grip since I was in junior high and I fight it. I do. I fight it every day. But this time of year, it’s everywhere. And this year it’s all so delicious. Bright and fresh. Soooo luscious. Reminiscent of the 60s, really. Which was the best of years. Oh, yes! Yum!

School supplies: Notebooks, binders, pens, paper, appointment books, folders, files, paper clips, pencils, highlighters, filing tabs, Post-it Notes,® Post-it® anything. (Post-it® is my passion and where I ought to put my retirement investment.) Oh, and Avery’s new NoteTabs® with so many uses.

I admit it. I confess. I am a school supply junky. I love just haunting office stores…Trolling up and down the aisles for my next fix.

And yet, none are as intriguing as the old red brick Utah Office Supply with the sorrel colored notebooks with creamy paper, Peter Pans (for those who don’t remember or are too young. They were gummed cloth reinforcement circles in a slid-open box you used for loose-leaf paper or handouts. You had to lick and stick. And yes, we still have something like them. They are plastic now and you pull them off a small page and place. A different experience. For one, you never have them spill. Great, but do you know how many times I met a boy because he stopped to help me pick up spilled Peter Pans?) red pencils for highlighting, fountain pens, cloth tabs you had to lick and stick, too.

Ah, the good old days when I had an excuse for new supplies. When I didn’t have a stack of notebooks I just had to buy last year and the year before. When I didn’t have that push/pull conflict of loving new notebooks so much I don’t when to use this one or that one because…and the love of stuffed full with my writings, poems, essays, notes, ideas, etc, notebooks.

My family has strict orders: haul me away from temptation. I’m thinking of being fitted with an ankle bracelet, too, so if you see a wild-eyed (sweaty palms, breathing too hard) fifty-something woman in the school supply aisle intervene. Please!