My sister has an investment portfolio. I have drawers of yoga pants.

I remember one particularly boring day at work when I decided to kill some time by calculating the retail value of all the lycra I was stashing in my bedroom. About six minutes into my tallying, I crumpled up the piece of paper and threw it into the trash; too frightened to finish the math. Better to leave the exact numbers to the credit card company.

My spandex addiction actually started on a Friday evening in the year 2004.

It was late, and I was a sleepy fourteen year old trying to keep myself awake while babysitting kids that were already asleep. Attempting to pass time studying the framed photos on the mantel and reading report cards on the fridge, I stumbled across a catalog I had never seen before. The woman on the cover was running on a beach that had mountains in the background. I could see her arm muscles and her abs. She looked strong and pretty and disinterested in impressing anyone.

She was wearing a pair of tight, black leggings.

Mesmerized, I thumbed through the glossy pages for the rest of the night, eventually convincing myself it was OK to steal this lady’s mail and shoving the publication in my purse to take home.

Back when girls still wore rolled up soffe shorts to PE and you had to pay for shipping when you shopped online (thank God that’s over with), every cent I earned babysitting got saved so I could own something from that catalog. When my first package, the piece that started my collection, finally arrived, I transformed. No longer was I the awkward freshman who had spent the last 8 years of school wearing a uniform and now had no sense of style and no idea how to look like a normal teen. Now, I was a bad ass. I was fierce. A bombshell. A babe. All of it. And I loved it.

As I got older my obsession only grew. I purchased more, adding new brands and styles to my assortment. In college I worked at Lucy in Marietta. Shortly after I graduated I moved to the city and helped open the Athleta in Atlantic Station. I adored opening up the boxes of new shipments and running my fingers on the smooth, soft fabric. I never tired of watching the women come out of their fitting rooms, smiling, changed. Reliving that same feeling of bliss and power and opportunity I felt years before.

The yogi in me knows about non attachment. Knows that our bodies are simply vessels and the outside doesn’t really matter at all.

But the yogi in me also knows that manifestation is real and sometimes you gotta believe something before you achieve it.

So if wearing a those hunter green hiking shorts makes it easier to conquer the steep climbs, or slipping into some tech crops makes you sprint a little faster, or splurging on those mesh leggings gives you a little more motivation to get to that 6am yoga class—go for it.

Life is short, buy the yoga pants… just make sure they aren’t see through.