The Lost Sunglasses
Note to my dear readers: I’m musing today on how losing something beautiful we’ve collected can dredge up fears of falling back, especially if you’ve started anew multiple times and weathered good financial times and bad, as I have. I wrote this essay soon after losing my first Tom Ford sunglasses at Ohope Beach in New Zealand, in early January and continued the musings during a snowstorm back here in Wisconsin. (So, it’s a cross-continental exploration of sorts.) You can hear me narrating these musings in this week’s Competency No 5 podcast, because I do believe collecting and then losing things — even worrying about losing things — can erode our presence.
I lost my Tom Ford Whitney sunglasses at Ohope beach yesterday. I knew, going into the waves, the folly of this stupid move. Six-to-eight foot waves crashed everywhere; the roar of the surf enormous; but I wanted to protect my face and eyes from New Zealand’s intense sun rays and just loved to wear them everywhere. What a silly goose.
The frames stayed on just fine at the beginning of this lark as I leapt and bounced around with my New Zealand family I was visiting and with my sons. But as the waves thickened and my timing and interpretation of the waves waned, I crashed and burned and felt the beautiful specs release from behind my ears. (Their lovely arms curved beautifully behind your ears in ways only the Italians can design.) My Tom Fords floated up, off my face, and out to sea.
I felt the ocean surge remove them immediately. Panicked I felt around and looked around — knowing the waves would return before I knew it and perhaps again I could see. But to no avail. After looking with my niece and her husband, the truth loomed: My Tom Ford Whitney glasses — my first Tom Ford sunglasses ever — were probably gone.
I continued looking for a good 30 mins after. At one point, my nephew felt them and then lost them once more. After wading for the final five minutes, a pinch from a crab on my toe and the thunder and lightening overhead signaled to give up. The gorgeous Tom Ford sunglasses truly were gone.
I found calm and self compassion soon after the loss of the first pair in New Zealand’s ocean knowing that it was New Year’s eve and that the next day, a delightful New Zealander (or tourist visiting New Zealand) might find the pair I lost. They’d enjoy their beauty and perhaps find the prize as a positive omen of great things to come.
And yet I missed what I had lost. That night, struck with my normal insomnia before our trip back up North and then on to the states, I wasted a good hour looking on Amazon for replacements. I’d found these stunning Italian frames, blue, and a butterfly shape, for a reasonable $120 US vs the typical and exorbitant $455 asking price. On first search, nothing compared. I found similar ones to the ones I’d just lost. But the price point spiked to $350, which felt too silly and brutal to bear.
Other big brands enticed in fleeting ways. A gray glittery Dolce Gabanna pair made it briefly to the shopping bag before I rejected it. (Too sad a gray compared to the Smokey blue of the RIP Tom Fords.) A Gucci pair with Havana tortoiseshell frame became a short contender before me deleting those as well. (Too round. Too Elton John. Too busy with flecks of brown.) I almost committed to a Bottega Veneta frame in pink before deciding they’re too young and bling-ish. (Those remain in my Wish List, for now.) None made the Final Cut. I felt I’d lost the perfect pair.
Wondering if I even really needed a replacement, I reflected on the sunglasses I’ve owned and lost and the ones I still possess back home. I have the brown Salvatore Ferragamo’s I’d snagged for $65 on Amazon on a freezing winter day the winter before. (Sunglasses always go down in price in the cooler months, once you get out of January cruise season.) I remembered the Gucci pair I bought at the outlet store for $50. A bit goofy — but bold and lovely. I have not worn them yet. And I recalled the two older, well-used pair I have lost and have not yet resurfaced: A tortoiseshell Chloe pair and a blue Salvatore Ferragamo. That’s a lot of sunglasses, I determined.
With all of this, I’ve realized how much time I waste and anxiety I can create through loving and collecting beautiful things. Experts have tracked that throughout our lives, many of us can waste up to six months of our life looking for items we’ve lost. That I do erode calm, peace, and happiness by misplacing or losing things I love, feels hard to admit because fashion and beautiful things bring me joy, pride, even confidence.
I grew up loving fashion. My mother and grandmothers taught me to love and collect beautiful things, saving, and sometimes going without other niceties to comfortably afford. (New Zealand, an island nation in the South Pacific, has always been more expensive than most countries for niceties, especially pretty fashion.) I’ve learned to stockpile stunning things when I’m flush and hold back when I’m not.
While I over shop sometimes, overall, I have things in check. I’m generous with many people I love and I save a lot of my earnings by not spending on other things, like lavish meals out or expensive salon visits. (I’m a Cost-cutters fan.) I also donate a lot to Goodwill. When generous with myself, I strive to use everything I own and for multiple purposes. A Max Mara dress becomes one I can wear to a wedding, as a presenter (or for my photo shoots and promo videos) and as I coach. Nice fashion and premium items also help me feel more confident, especially when on camera. I enjoy my ritual of collating my work outfit the night before, picking a color palette and piecing things together to tell a story and match the wallpaper in my study.
My clients always notice and comment not only on the wall paper but that my clothes match. Many feel inspired to do the same: coordinate their outfit and create a pretty background for their video calls — so I’ve created a bit of a movement here. Feeling good in what we wear and how we show up builds connections. My women clients (and some men) ask after the origins of the things I wear — and I do the same with them. Researchers have also found many of us correlate a “pulled together” look, someone who’s coiffed and nicely dressed as having leadership presence. I don’t feel too guilty enjoying good reactions and I delight in learning from others on their choices.
As my business has grown, so has my love for premium fashion (when I’ve needed no extra encouragement). Before I couldn’t justify buying too much or anything too high end because I never hosted more than five or six classes or workshops a week. Now, I can coach up to 45 sessions a week with many repeat customers, I feel most confident and “present” when rotating my closet and looks.
The anxiety — when and if it surfaces — comes with securing and retaining what I’ve already collected and now own. And the nicer the item, the deeper the concern it will go (either through misplacing, dropping, or staining/tearing/breaking). Losing a $20 pair of gas station sunglasses feels quite different to a made in Italy well-designed pair, like the lovely lost Tom Fords. I can’t bear to waste money nor time and when an item I own expires or vanishes, I’ve lost both.
I think too, the more that I muse, that the loss or destruction of the item can signal to my Hyper Vigilant saboteur, the one with the heightened focus on all the dangers in life, that the end to any prosperity I’ve created is near. If so, that makes total sense. The loss or destruction of something beautiful I’ve carefully researched and then purchased stimulates an ever-present but well-managed fear of falling back. If so, this indeed helps explain the anxiety that comes up when we lose things, at least for me, and at least now in this life stage of growth — on all levels: my business, my family, my happiness and confidence.
“Rich Habits” author Tom Corley offers some wisdom here. From interviewing and studying the patterns and mindsets of wealthy and not-as wealthy individuals, he found that most self-made millionaires came from poverty (44% of those he interviewed.) Many contend that growing up poor made them bold at taking risks — to lift themselves out of poverty. Also, interestingly, Corley found that once these millionaires became rich, they became less comfortable with risk taking — something they were once expert at — out of fear of failing and falling back into the poverty they left. I suspect a similar phenomena may occur with our relationship with possessions as we rise and succeed in life.
If you’ve not fallen back financially nor experienced financial hardship, you may not relate to this feeling at all. If you have, perhaps you’ll agree that we can never truly recover from the trauma. Poverty I’ve experienced as an adult has come with food insecurity, loss of shelter, danger, and embarrassment and shame. I’ve sometimes made poor decisions, because without wealth, my options became limited.
For parts of my early 20s, living in Tokyo — the world’s largest and most expensive city, I only just made rent in the Gaijin house where I lived with other foreigners and budgeted carefully for groceries and other expenses, which could not include nice things. (Anything nice I owned friends had donated.) Even when moving to San Francisco years later, I often missed weddings or reunions because I couldn’t afford the fare nor a nice outfit. While the absence of these experiences tears my heart; I would not feel proud nor right returning poor. Remaining absent felt better and reduced any worry from others for my “status.” Nor did I want anyone to think my decision to leave New Zealand and make something of myself was a “failure” an irrational but truthful feeling many foreign-born people I adore can relate to.
I’m outside of this zone now and while not super wealthy, I’m comfortable with savings, a family and home I love, and steady, strong earnings doing something I absolutely love. I’m also functioning (for the first time in my working career) in an industry of abundance vs. scarcity. While everything feels stable — finally — my overthinking over lost items and losing items becomes perhaps the one residual place where I seek more presence and more work to separate past from the present and to be in the now.
Back to the lost luxury sunglasses which started these musings on wealth, poverty, and possessions and how our attachment to possessions can get in our way of presence. Ultimately, I replaced the Tom Fords for a great price although not the same lovely color of the first. (How could I resist?) And here’s what this new loss has reminded me of and an intention I want to weave into 2024 — especially now with Lunar New Year:
- Cherish what I own and take better care.
- Continue to give away what I no longer use and to a woman’s shelter — even volunteer and coach at a woman’s shelter. Trust that when I do lose something, I’ve given a gift to the finder — and may put them on a more positive path.
- Build accountability with others. (My sons now pledge to remind me not to take sunglasses near water — or at least not without a sunglasses rope — given this fiasco at Ohape Beach was not the first time. I’ve lost another splendid pair in Milwaukee’s canal.)
- Know deeper feelings exist behind any anxiety or overthinking — and this is one area I can get coached on and write more on, because writing always unlocks so much.
Debbi Gardiner McCullough coaches and trains foreign-born leaders to become more confident, concise, and mentally fit communicators. From Wisconsin, she owns and runs Hanging Rock Coaching and coaches worldwide with BetterUp.