What's your purse-onality?

A few years ago, a dear friend and I had the opportunity of attending a Women of Faith Conference. It was such a wonderful time in the presence of God with a lot of women.

One aspect that I cannot forget is when Anita Renfroe came up and started by asking how many people came to the conference with their best friend...that was tricky and yet a moment of truth - I wonder how many ladies told the truth. It was really funny and interesting to see how ladies looked at each other with that query: "Are you my friend - let alone my best friend?" Even Anita picked up on those looks and rubbed it in. At least I was there with one of my best friends; we looked at each other laughed and boldly raised up our hands. No one ever said you cannot have more than one best friend... I've found that a handful is just enough - we've talked about that before and likely will again.

She went on and talked about women's purse-onalities and how our purses (or handbags -as some of us call them) tell so much about who we are. Now I cannot remember the exact details of all she said - well I was laughing more than committing her comments to memory. So I'll just share some of my thoughts or at least what goes through my mind (& mouth sometimes) when I'm "purse-watching"...


Encarta defines "personality" as: "the totality of somebody's attitudes, interests, behavioral patterns, emotional responses, social roles, and other individual traits that endure over long periods of time."* It's who you really are - irrespective of what you want others to think or even what they decide to think even if that was not your intention - does that make sense or am I stumbling over words? Well, purse-onality is a different kettle of fish and could be determined by or even contribute to your personality.

As I was saying earlier, I find myself "purse-watching" - not that it's a hobby it just happens - I even purse-watch myself. When I purse-watch, I sometimes ask people with big purses/handbags, "What is in your bag?" I notice that some big purses are limp and almost shapeless because they do not have enough in them and others are bulging and even out of shape because they are overstuffed.

If any bag is to be overstuffed, I'd expect that it will be a baby (diaper) bag - just because you never know what to expect and what you may need - though even that can be managed. In fact, I remember that when my children were infants, I literally collapsed my purse into the diaper bag so I had less to carry. I'm always amused when I see young mothers, or shall I say mothers of young children, with a baby (diaper) bag and their own purse. Well maybe the message they intend to send (& are sending) is: "I'm still me - even after a baby (or two or more)." True, but why risk forgetting something when you can reduce what you are carrying; in fact why stress your arms/back?

Before and after the life (& adventure) of carrying diaper bags as my purse, I felt that I could organize my stuff better with a multi-compartment purse. My eyes always lit up (& still do) when I saw a purse that has several pockets, zippers, flaps. Seemed like a way to be better organized. Sooner than later, I found that compartments just created additional opportunities to put more stuff in my purse. It always felt as if each pocket had to have something in it (sound familiar?) - and that something was too often forgotten when I needed to change my purse. After several attempts to get it right, I decided that having purses with many compartments didn't improve my POS (Purse Organizational Skills), nor did they help my arms/back.

I learned one thing though - the number of compartments (or even the lack of compartments) have an impact on the contents of the purses and possibly tell about our purse-onality. Think about it this way, I used to "save" (or you may say hide) money in some of those compartments so if I had to take a purse out at short notice I won't be without cash. So was I being secretive or just pro-active? I'd say proactive although sometimes I forgot that there was money in that particular purse until my husband stumbled on it. The contents-and-compartments combo sure told me a lot about my purse-onality.

What does that combo tell you about your purse-onality?

While you're thinking about the answer to that question, there are 2 other "C"s of purse-onality that may help you...

...to be discussed in subsequent postings...

Source:

*http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/dictionary/DictionaryResults.aspx?lextype=3&search=personality