“Why I Became Obsessed With Shopping” by Robin Romm

A new piece by faculty member Robin Romm appears at Role Reboot:

I could accumulate objects even if the people and life I loved and wanted more than any object were stripped from me ruthlessly, brutally. 

After my mother died, my father couldn’t bring himself to empty out her closets. My mother had been sick for a decade, declining slowly throughout my 20s. She had plenty of time to feel all the things people feel when they understand that they’re dying, when it no longer feels like an abstraction, but rather a fact. She felt alone. She felt afraid. She felt able to appreciate the sun on her face, the velvet of a cat’s ear. She felt out of control. She felt grateful for her friends. She felt air hunger. She felt like something in her was against her, was eating her alive.

Continue reading online…