I would hazard a guess that we all have vices. Maybe there are some who think themselves without or above, but, if we really look at ourselves honestly, we have behaviors and choices that we identify as our weaknesses. At least I know that I do.

My beloved husband would say that I have one vice and it is certainly one I could not even try to deny. I do love to shop. I love pretty clothes, I love new things, I love to feel confident and attractive.

Yesterday, after a stressful and busy few weeks, I made a pilgrimage to a local store that’s become a favorite. Not only do they have fun, casual clothes but the manager, who has become a friend, has a great way of helping me fill a dressing room with options.

I left there with a bulging shopping bag, which is pretty much the norm every time I go. As I got to the car to cram the bag into my trunk, my husband called. I told him, a bit ruefully, that I shouldn’t be allowed to go into that store without supervision! His response led to a conversation that lasted throughout my entire ride home.

He said, “This is your stress release. It’s what you enjoy and it makes you happy. I’m glad you went and glad that you had fun.” Of course, my initial reaction was to wonder how I got so blessed as to find someone who understands and accepts me—all of me, the good, the bad and the ugly. And I said that to him. But the conversation took a different turn from there.

We’d been talking earlier in the week about “why” questions, looking at relationships and incidents in our lives and understanding the “why” of them, figuring out what made things go a certain way or have a certain outcome.

We began to talk about the “why” of my love for clothes, of my desire to always look “right.” He knew, without my saying it, that the root of this was my father. This was the man who cut the lawn wearing a tie, whose clothes filled every closet in our house, whose tailor seemed a member of the family.

My dad bought all of our clothes when we were kids. He especially loved to buy dresses and to have his little girl look “just so.” How we looked (especially me I think) reflected on him and was a priority. This was a man who had me stand on a kitchen chair for what seemed like hours as he trimmed my bangs in an exact straight line, the man who’d greet me as I came in, after walking home from school in an upstate New York winter, and ask why my hair was a mess.

In fact, I shamelessly used my dad’s exacting standards to my advantage during my college years. I would come home for a visit, deliberately dressed in my rattiest jeans and shirt and could just about count to 10 before my father handed me a credit card and told me to go get something better to wear.

When my mother died, it was, although it shouldn’t have been, a shock to me. I was 25, deep in denial, unable to imagine that I could lose my mother. How was I going to face life without her love and support and belief in me? I’d had surgery on that Tuesday, surgery she had asked me to postpone when I’d seen her the preceding weekend. But, of course, I didn’t, insisting I would see her the following weekend. She did not live until that weekend. I got the call from my father on that Friday morning.

I was an emotional mess and physically still recovering. Yet I dragged myself to the local mall to find a black dress, the right black dress. I knew that I had to be in black, that my dad would expect it and that, in truth, I would expect it of myself. I also knew, on some level, that how I presented myself was like my armor, my way of shielding my ever so vulnerable self.

When we understand the roots of what drives us, we also come to accept them. For good or for ill, we are complex beings with complex histories and complex motivations. Our vices, our flaws and our choices are all part of who we are, are all elements as we work to fill our full hearts.