Use the Cute Sticky Notes

I love stationary and school supplies. It’s one of those things I find so adorable about myself. Gimme a bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils Mr. Fox because I will love them. But guess what? I won’t use them.

Over the years I have amassed quite the collection of pencils, pens, notebooks, sticky notes, stickers, highlighters, and even cute little paper clips. I’m so good with pencils I’m almost positive I still have one of the pencils from the original pack of mechanical pencils I bought when I started college. I’m giving myself a pat on the back for that right now.

The point is, I buy this really cute stuff (not limited to office supplies), and I save it. I save it for something “special”. Yes, I put that word in quotations because I don’t actually know what “special” event I was planning for when I ordered oversized sticky notes with watercolored macaroons from England. I have no clue what my reasoning was, but I do know that when I finally decided to use those 3-year-old sticky notes the other day they were all but useless.

That’s right, the $20 pad of sticky notes I ordered from a stationery shoppe in London were useless because they were so old the glue had deteriorated and I couldn’t pull off a page without it sticking to the one underneath. I was so concerned with saving those notes for something special that by the time I decided to use them they were useless and ugly.

I use this long-winded spiel about fancy sticky notes to give you an analogy about life: Sometimes, we’re so busy saving everything for something special that by the time we decide to use whatever it is we saved it’s no good or just doesn’t live up to the hype.

Life is short, life goes by super fast, and it likes to happen while we’re busy making other plans, or worse not even paying attention.

Saving things for special occasions has a time and place, like that cute pair of shoes you have no where to wear them to (yet), or that lipstick color that would be perfect for a single event. There’s a reason to buy something you love for an event you hope will happen, but if there’s one thing 2020 taught us it’s that just because we planned for it doesn’t mean it’s gonna happen. Like ever.

So, I’m encouraging you to break out those special shoes, those amazing earrings, or the phenomenal dress. Let a random Wednesday night dinner be as special as the theoretical evening in Paris you had planned. After all, Carrie Bradshaw saved her Paris dress for what ultimately ended up being a night in her hotel room, and as we learned in “And Just Like That” she never wore it again.

Don’t forget to live your life right now, because we aren’t promised anything. So many of my girlfriends have learned this recently, and it’s been amazing to watch them live their lives for themselves right now, instead of waiting for the life they thought they would have.

If you’ve got something in your home that you’ve been saving I encourage you to take it out of its hiding spot and find a way to use it this week. Maybe it’ll be the little pep in your step you needed.

Besides, there’s no such thing as overdressed, and even the grocery list deserves to be on cute paper.

Love,

Lilly