No More The Fool
Unshackled and believing
No longer bitten by deceiving.
Blinkers off to allow
Absence of all that's sallow.
Refusing to swallow the pill
Standing up in strong will.
To see them eat humble pie
Oh yet you may well ask but why.
For rose coloured specs are no more
Trampled and discarded on the floor.
A forgotten and useless tool
For no more am I the fool.
_
Karen Burns is 49 and lives in Coventry, England and she is a freelance journalist. Her interests are reading, poetry, writing reviews and she has a blog all about her daughter who has an eating disorder.
My name is Mary Raftopoulos, and I am a reformed shopaholic. There was a time when my wardrobe was less of a collection and more of a fast-fashion landfill in disguise. As a kid, I thought nothing of buying the same pair of shoes in every colour, like I was collecting Pokémon, except my catchphrase was “gotta wear ‘em all… once.” I would also use Primark like a disposable clothing store. Wear it, bin it, repeat.
But growing older has a funny way of shifting your perspective. The more I learned about the realities behind my shopping habits - the waste, the exploitation, the sheer environmental cost, the harder it became to ignore. Slowly, the thrill of a quick purchase was replaced by a different kind of satisfaction of finding interesting pieces that outlived fleeting trends.