One of my most comforting thoughts was: “It’s just a hobby.”

This thought worked especially well when DHL was dropping off another small, but emotionally significant package from Japan.

My hobby logic went like:

• I’m not over shopping. I’m researching.

• I’m not over consuming. I’m refining my taste.

• I’m not overthinking. I’m developing my aesthetic.

I wasn’t leisurely exploring. My “hobby” never ended and it never satisfied. I think there was some quiet hope  “If I wear this, I will feel different about myself.” But that never lasted.

Calling it a hobby also made something stressful feel almost virtuous. Research, comparison, editing, optimizing. My nervous system did not experience this as crocheting.

Real hobbies leave you absorbed and restored. This left me activated and weirdly tense about pocket placement.

The shift happened when I stopped calling it a hobby and started seeing it for what it was: I was mostly trying to regulate how I felt through clothing.

Less romantic but more honest.

And a lot fewer packages to emotionally process.