Month: April 2015

Back in the late 70’s early 80’s, Tupperware came out with this lunch box which for for all intents and purposes was inspired by a Japanese bento box.

We weren’t well off enough to splurge on Tupperware, nor did my family like to waste money on things that had simpler utilitarian alternatives (brown bags). So I’m pretty sure when I DID get one (after much parental convincing), it was close to the only Tupperware in the house and I treated it like the Ark of the Covenant.

I kept it so clean, mothering it, polishing it dry, all for the next day’s lunch adventure. Then after maybe a month of ownership, perhaps even less, it was stolen.

Two days later, I accused another student of stealing it because she had the exact same model and I could see my name scrawled on the bottom before she yanked it closer to her chest to hide my handwriting.

I never pushed the issue. I don’t know why. I think I was partially mortified that someone that close to me (small school) would do something so horrible. I was also smart enough to realize that if I asked again, the name might be removed so it was a pointless venture to try to ask or point it out again.

I felt injustice by my own hand by not doing anything. People steal, this wasn’t a new concept, but friends or classmates stealing and then protesting their obvious theft? I was dead inside after that. Dead to material ownership of things. Why bother lusting after something everyone wants? Someone will just take it. It’s not worth it.

I still miss you lunch box.

I hope your new owner thinks about her theft every day and that it has carved a deep, stale, tupperware-plastic, smelly hole in her heart.

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This post was inspired by a Reddit user posing the question: What mild injustice was done to you as a child that you are still mad about?.  I recommend you read the other responses, it will be an interesting respite from the harsh day.

The amazing photograph of The Lunchbox was published with permission by Mitzi Swisher of Vintage Goodness. Check out her fabulous blog for all things mid century.

We sometimes go through life looking backwards, reaching deeper as the years go by and what do we see?

Are the memories softer because of age, or are they painted with a varnish of wisdom that comes through living through them?

This particular weekend has brought back a lot of memories that were once filled with thorns but time and therapeutic apologies have trimmed off the points, leaving nothing but blooms.  In our youth we experience what I think are some of the most tumultuous situations of our life. We’re changing on a daily basis, surfing a wave of hormones we can’t control and occasionally we crash the waves made by other people’s crafts, causing wakes that can pulverize or intersect with greatness.

I’m mostly talking about personal relationships that have gone by in the past with people who go unnamed here because no one deserves the wrong type of attention. I’m approaching this blog entry as a straight female adult living with the memories of loving a gay person in my childhood. He was not in any position to completely understand his feelings or come out of a closet so tightly nailed shut in the era we grew up in, that there really can be no blame for any hurt feelings that passed between us.

From my perspective, I was once dating a kind, generous, fun, soul that became anxious to explore the sexual potential of the human body with another person so hard and fast that I was unable to mentally process five minutes ahead of myself, a girl who lived an emotionally desperate, parent-demanded chaste life.  I never inwardly blamed him for the impulses, I just couldn’t ever give back because I was wrapped up in that fear. I lashed out publicly at the impulses but I never truly blamed him. I blamed myself for being the prude who couldn’t reciprocate and many relationships afterwards were tinged with that inability and feeling violated for wanted to feel good.  My brain was twisted to not get close to another human being and it took many years to un-wring that mess.

After many cross words spewed down stairwells and across hallways, we went our separate ways, neither knowing what truly powered the other. It wasn’t until many years later that I came to understand the inception of all disastrously immature behavior that passed between us. The event gave me pause to instantly forgive not only him but myself. In the middle of a fashion design class, for some reason, we started talking about significant others that had become famous.  My X-boyfriend, a local personality had come up in conversation, and I mentioned our connection in high school. You think it only happens in the movies, but the room really did become become silent enough to hear pins drop.  I looked up from my work and the woman across from me, with a look of disbelief, said her roommate (a man) was dating my x-boyfriend from high school.

I remember that moment as if something in my life had died and simultaneously exploded like a beautiful phoenix into the air. The clarity that came with finding out a person that caused me so much heart felt pain was gay made the moment palpable and the only thing I could say as I set down my arms on the table was, “That makes complete sense.”  I understand now and all is forgiven. Not only were they set free, I was too.

We spoke later through letters and I’ve kept those letters as a reminder that we move through this life with the ability to grow as human beings and loving ourselves is tantamount to loving others.  It’s so easy to get caught up in revenge or harbor ill feelings because let’s face it, hatred is as powerful of a drug as is love, but love is, with my utmost respect for the cliche, what makes the world go around.