Lullanotes

I love my designer bags, accessories and clothes as much as a lot of other women I've seen. As much as the neighbour down the corridor likes her plant, as much as the man in the nice shirt loves his shiny car and as much as my mother whoops in joy at supermarket sales. It's frivolous, I give you that but honestly, I find no shame in it. I work hard to finance my desires and I will not justify that it is a good way of spending hard-earned dosh but it's my money, I am allowed to be careless with it (but I want to assure you I wish I didn't).

No, it is not a post at flaunting whatever little I have. I've been using designer wallets for a long time because I always feel that if I have to splurge on designer anything, wallets are the best cost-per-wear items to own as one doesn't change her wallet everyday and usually it lasts for at least a good 2 - 3 years if not much longer. However I've been looking at minimizing the things that I bring outside with me. I used to step out of the house carrying the world with me in a giant tote. In this huge bag, you could find every single convenience from batteries to another pair of flats and extra underwear to full size perfume to a plastic fan. Since then, I've come a long way and managed to pair down to the absolute essentials ‒ iPad, mobile charger for my constantly dying phone, minimal makeup kit, keys, phone and a wallet. I even managed to squeeze these into a crossbody bag ... except for the wallet. I had these thick, fat wallets and my love for leather didn't help.

It was frustrating because although the leather was soft and smoochy and the brand shines through in uniformly spaced out letters, it was something I felt I could scale back on in size on but foolhardily refused to. Anyway, to cut the long story short, there came this day I just wanted things to be simple. I just wanted to bring out a fully charged phone, a wallet and house keys and stuff them into this mini clutch so I dug around, found the Coach Poppy Graffiti Wristlet that a few of my friends had given to me for my 30th birthday and decided to use it.

Instead, I found Freedom. The purse was utilitarian. It had a large zipped compartment which consisted of 4 spacious card slots and a coin compartment. There was also an exterior slot and it had straps. The spacious card slots were important because I had to carry my debit and credit cards, personal identification card and some discount cards. Each card slot could fit 2 cards at least and the last one could probably fit four. For the bills, I just put it in the main compartment and my coins are neatly stashed into the inner zipped compartment. The outer slot was important for putting my subway card which I used to lose on a very regular basis because I would not put it in my bulky wallet with my other cards. The best part is of course the detachable straps. Even if I had an abyss for a bag, I could detach the straps and hang it around the handle of the bag and never lose my wallet in my mess again. It was patent and I never feared getting it dirty because just a wet wipe would clean it up very nicely. All those crap stuffed in the little pink purse and it didn't look like it held the universe. It was still slim and sleek plus I genuinely also love it for the sentimental value. I stopped using my other more expensive wallet but I didn't miss it, especially now it fits perfectly into my smallest of bags and I didn't have to juggle a bowl of noodles, a drink and on top of it, a bulky wallet during lunch.

Maybe the same applies in Life itself. Perhaps we overthink the amount of things we need in our life and over-emphasize on what we thought was important and how others look at us. It turned out what I was looking for in a wallet wasn't something prestigious or even extremely well-crafted in the finest material. I was looking for something useful, befitting of my lifestyle and the sentimental value was only a reason to love it even more.