Who else uses retail therapy to fill the sad emptiness in their life when the void grows too big to be ignored?

That sounds really dramatic, but I just took an exam and if my GPA was a volleyball it would have just gotten spiked six feet under the ground. I need some time to wallow and rest after staying up all night studying. My ego is bruised, my hair is a mess, my body is shaking from the aftershocks of too much caffeine and too little sleep. I’m also laying in bed with an Adele album playing in the background the entire time, making this moment the most perfect storm for some online shopping.

Forever 21 has been harassing me with coupon codes... My favorite online-only makeup brand released new products and a gift with purchase… And shit, I still have two months of Amazon Prime Student.

Scroll. Open in new tab. Add to cart. Rinse and repeat until the aching pit in my gut is patched up by pretty lipsticks and sparkly eyeshadows. And now I have something to look forward to for the next 5 to 7 business days.

I’m sorry Beyonce -- I’m not too smart to crave material things. I have enough makeup as it is, anyway.

Like some kind of weird cosmetic magpie, I’ll rummage through my makeup some nights just to look at it. I’ll try them out on the back of my hand to see that they’re still pretty and tuck them back into their homes just to find a kind of meditation in the clatter of plastic packaging. A mother hen finds peace in counting her eggs, right?

And you know, this kind of post-test angst happens so often (after basically every test) that you’d think I would have learned by now to deal with it or have developed a better coping mechanism already. It’s unrealistic to require a mourning period every time a test doesn’t go my way, and it's even more unrealistic to try fixing all of my problems with shopping, especially when these purchases do nothing to fix the true cause of my angst.

I realize that the root of the problem is bigger than a materialistic fixation. It has more to do with being my own worst critic and obsessing over my mistakes to the point where the only way to feel better is by distracting myself with something new and shiny. After all, I may not be able to remember that antibodies are globulins, but I like to think that I’m pretty good at putting on makeup. What I really need to be able to do is forgive myself-- not by becoming a regular at the mail room, but by recognizing that one misstep doesn’t mean that I'm a complete disaster.