The Purse Meme

The lovely Akelamalu has tagged me for a meme. Here are the rules (diluted, because this post turned out to be longer than I expected it to be!)

1. Dump the contents of your purse in a pile
2. Take a photo of your purse and the contents
3. Be brave and 'splain to your fellow bloggers what lurks inside the purse.
4. Tag others who might want to embarrass themselves
5. Answer these questions:
Describe the contents of your purse.
What's the most important thing in your purse?
What's the most embarrassing thing in your purse?
What's the smallest thing in your purse?
Is there anything illegal in your purse?

First off, I’ll write exactly what Akelamalu wrote and explain that here in the UK, a purse is a handbag. (So what do you Americans call the thing you keep your money in, eh?)

I have about twenty handbags – three or four of which I use on a regular basis, the other 16 or so I use for evenings out, depending on what I’m wearing and where I’m going. (Actually, that’s a complete lie. About 15 of those 16 have never been used. Yeah, I’m a handbag junky.)

For quite a while I seem to have been alternating between two bags. This one:


And this one:
You may not be able to tell, but the black leather one is considerably larger than the beige canvas one. It’s the canvas one I’m using at the moment which means only half of what was in the black bag will fit into it. So…. here are the contents of the canvas bag:


Purse
Mobile phone
Packet of cigarettes and a lighter
2 pens
Make –up case (which has everything in it – powder, eyeshadows, blushers etc)
2 make-up brushes
Mirror
Black mascara
Juicy fruit lip gloss
Key fob

The most important thing in my bag at the moment is the front door key. Without it, I wouldn’t be able to get into the house but more importantly, the key fobs are kind of special. The moose (I think that’s what it is) was bought for me by Rob years ago, just after we got together. And the little Russian doll – although new – reminds me of a blog post I wrote a couple of years ago. I’ll come back to that later. The most important thing SHOULD have been my mobile phone, but since this is a replacement for my stolen one, it has no value to me at all. The old phone had numbers on it I will never be able to retrieve; text messages which meant the world to me (Rob’s marriage proposal, for example) which are now lost forever, and the phone itself was the loveliest phone I have ever owned. So pooh.

The most embarrassing thing in my handbag I suppose has to be the cigarettes. I’m not proud of being a smoker.
The smallest thing? Um…take your pick.
And no, there is nothing illegal in there (although there’s a good chance I may have nicked one of the pens).

The black bag still has stuff in it which wouldn’t fit into the canvas bag:



A rather awful umbrella.
Some paracetamol
Golden Virginia tobacco
A manky packet of cigarette papers
A lighter which no longer lights
A lens cap (That’s where it went!)
An empty packet of chewing gum
A handbag charm (which used to dangle from my bag but I removed it when I went for an interview.)
A crushed cigarette
A nicotine inhaler thingy which is supposed to help you give up smoking, but doesn’t.
A lighter in the shape of a motorbike
A fridge magnet which doubles up as a bulldog clip (I have no idea where this came from.)
A Boots money-off voucher for skin care products. (Yes…another one to add to the pile.)
Various pieces of paper – including a letter I wrote to B (but never sent) on the morning after his outburst, which resulted in me leaving. Part of it reads :

I refuse to be treated like a child. I refuse to be controlled. I refuse to be intimidated or scared. And I refuse to live with a man who chooses to incite panic in me, just because he can.

The most important thing here is the handbag charm. See those two blue stones? When I was dealing with panic attacks every day and trying to overcome them, I would hold them in my hand on the bus…feel the coldness between my thumb and fingers and remind myself to ‘calm down’. They got me through many a difficult bus journey. I’m so glad I can go out without them now.

The most embarrassing thing has to be the umbrella. It’s hideous.
The smallest thing is an old bus ticket, wrapped around a piece of chewing gum!
And yes…there is something illegal in this bag. Any guesses? (Actually, thinking about it, I’m not sure that it IS illegal now. Hmm. I’ll have to ask Rob.)

Now….back to that little Russian doll – the most important item in my first bag. As you know, Russian dolls open up to reveal a smaller doll in the middle. My doll doesn’t open. It’s the smallest one that you find at the end. I wrote a blog post a couple of years ago entitled:

Tribute to the Girls.

Here it is.

If you click on half of my links on the right, you’ll find yourself in the centre of someone’s world… a woman’s world…where you’ll read heartfelt entries written with such poignancy it’ll take your breath away.

In the past week alone I’ve been reading about women’s personal struggles with domestic violence, abuse, rape, and most recently, the story of a mother’s anguish at having her child kidnapped by her own husband. I’m sure you’ve read all these too. You’re probably one of the women I’m talking about.

Who would have thought that in this small circle of blog friends, there would be so much pain? So much injustice? So many awful experiences at the hands of the male population?

When I started my blog in March I knew nobody, and I had to find a little niche which I thought I’d fit into. I found you guys – and I’m glad I did. Was I was drawn to you all because unbeknown to me at the time, we all shared similar experiences? Or could I have slotted into any group out there and found the same thing? Are the experiences of this little group a true representation of how rife it is? Because if it is, that scares me to death.

One thing I have always found truly amazing though, is the incredible inner strength that women have. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again…A woman is like a teabag. You don’t know how strong she is until you put her in hot water. Somehow, through all the shit and the hurt and the unfairness of everything – when our self esteem is in tatters… when trust is a word we don’t know the meaning of… when fear is surging through every vein in our bodies….when we’ve cried so many tears we don’t think there’s any left - we delve down and find courage. We’re like those Russian dolls. A man can strip us of one layer – take something away. Then another…and another…until we get smaller and smaller. And then there’s only one left – that little fucking hard one in the middle that he can’t open up. They can try all they damn well like, but they can’t get to the core of us. They can’t break us. And somehow, over time, we build those layers right back up. Somehow, we manage to trust again. Somehow we manage to replenish a belief that not all men are the same. Somehow, we manage to smile. And carry on. That’s what we do. And we do it damn well.

I’m not sure why I wrote this, or what I wanted to say. Maybe just that I think you are all completely amazing – each and every one of you. And in being a woman, and being a part of all this, there’s solidarity. And that’s fucking amazing too.

So yeah, my little Russian doll means the world to me.

And my apologies for making this so long.

I won't tag anyone, but feel free to run with it if you want to. Irene, Maureen, FP, Ronnie, KJ, Heather, Jo, Queenie...the list is endless...I'd love to see what's in yours. No pressure, though! x