I made tea this morning. I usually make coffee, so it had been a couple of weeks since I took out my tea canister from the back of the cupboard. Every time I see it now, I am struck with waves of nostalgia and gratitude.

I moved to this town in 2010. I was just out of graduate school, was broke and in debt. I moved here for a job, but there was going to be a two month gap between when school ended and the job started. I had borrowed $1,500 from my parents to help me tide over the gap - that was to be stretched to pay for the move, deposit and rent for an apartment, and to help me survive for a couple of months. I drove to the PNW from the Midwest with my sister. It was a difficult time in her life and she was very depressed. She was moving abroad at the time for work, and we did not know when she would be able to return - we were hoping within the year, but it was possible it could be years. It was immediately after the Great Recession and jobs in her field were hard to come by. She also had just graduated, and had tried all she could to find a job here, but ultimately had to move. She was broke too. I was heart broken that she had to leave. My joy at finding a job and moving to a place I always wanted to live was shrouded by grief and poverty.

In the week between arriving here and when she had to leave, she helped me find an apartment and buy some essential things to help me settle in. We had stopped at TJ Maxx, when I spotted the tea canister. For some reason unknown to me, I really, really, REALLLY wanted to buy it. It almost felt like I had to buy it in order to hang on to the hope that I deserved to have the things I wanted. I wanted my sister to stay. I wanted not to worry about money. I wanted not to be devastated with grief. I wanted to know what would happen within the next year. I wanted so much, and the tea canister seemed somehow to hold the power to prove to me that I could have it. 

I did not need a tea canister - I could just get the tea out of the package that it comes in. Furthermore, it cost $2.99. That is not a lot of money, but when one is broke, $2.99 can buy the ingredients for four days worth of beans and rice. I agonized for nearly a half hour trying to decide whether or not to buy it until finally my sister told me to buy it. And I did.

The following day, she and I had stopped at a local fast food chain, and we only had enough money to get the medium-sized rice bowl that they had. We had never eaten there before, and at the end my sister told me that she really enjoyed it and wished that we could have got the large-sized rice bowl. After my sister left, for the entire time she was gone, each time I saw the tea canister, I felt waves of guilt at having bought it. If I had not bought it, she could have had more to eat. I cried each time I thought of it.

My sister returned the following year. I eventually got out of debt. I am privileged now so that I can spend $2.99 and more on things that I want even when they are not necessary to me. I can now look at the tea canister with gratitude instead of guilt.

I will never again buy another tea canister. This one is so precious to me. I never removed the TJMaxx label so that I would never forget how much it cost, so I can always remember to be grateful for what I now have.