Living in Seasons

There's something I've been curious to try, and I wonder if writing about it here might help.

It's based on a simple truth about all of us:

We get bored of the same old thing.

I say this as someone who used to eat the exact same meal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for close to three years—technically three different meals but repeating that same three-meal pattern.

For the sake of this post, I am going to use clothes as a vehicle to explore the idea.

Feel free to replace clothes with whatever you're bored of.

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Where I live (and I suspect where most of you reading this also live), we have distinct seasons.

Naturally, there are clothes that we pull out of our closets and wear only during certain seasons.

There's a very specific kind of joy that I feel, when moving out of my winter jacket and into a spring jacket.

There are certain clothes I own, that are not seasonal. They are perpetual.

I am thinking specifically about the clothes that I exercise in.

I essentially have several versions of the same shorts, t-shirt, headband, and wristbands, and each week when I do laundry, I will mix and match these purely to be creative.

The thing is, even doing this, I can only fool myself for so long.

Sooner or later, I will (and have) get bored of wearing the same old thing.

This leads me to the usual place of window shopping online and trying to come up with a series of justifiable reasons to make truly unreasonable purchases.

Lately, I've been wondering, what if I treated my exercise clothes as seasonal clothes too?

I have more than enough colours to cover the spectrum of seasons and more than enough sets to sustain me in a given season.

What if I chose certain sets for a season and literally stored the others away?

Like I said at the beginning, I haven't tried it yet.

There are a few reasons why I'm considering it:

1. Distance might increase appreciation - I really love the clothes I have, but it feels as though I like them less and less each time I use them. Imagine a line that starts high and then slowly slopes down. Seasonality might cause the line to slope back up again, which means it will oscillate throughout the year as opposed to just sloping down all year.

2. Transitions might spark joy - Like I said earlier, there's a certain joy I feel in putting away my winter coat. I wonder whether I can extend and expand that feeling by bringing out a fresh set of exercise clothes at the same time.

Of course, I can't fall for the obvious trap of buying more clothes simply to suit the seasons. I already have enough.

The intention here is to leverage the idea of living seasonally to combat the feeling of being bored of the same old thing.

Try it (note to self).