I was clearing out my closet a few weeks ago, and pushed to the very back was a box of my mother’s things. It was no surprise to me, as this is where I put them, all together and unused since her passing in 2019. In the box were photographs, baby shoes, and recipe books, random items I was asked to store in sentiment but also literally. I’ve never flipped through the recipe books until then, though it was clear my mom had, with some small scribbles, folded pages and meals she likely tried at least once, or wanted to. 

Though I do not know if she ever made those recipes, she had certainly not made the recipes located in a section marked ‘special occasions’; filled with fine meals and desserts for celebration. It wouldn’t surprise me if I were told that I was the first to expose these pages to light; a section with no dog-ears and the spine of the book uncracked in its place. 

This is not to say that my mother did not have special moments worthy of special recipes, or that this section of the book indicates anything at all. It is to say that it reminded me of the way we designate a specialness to time, a good opportunity to use more important things for more important moments. It reminded me of preservation and how we hold onto things in wait.

I think of my relationship to items and opportunities and even to joy, and recognize a perversion of preservation that resembles restriction more than the promise of actual use. I think of the recipe book, I think of the ingredients that awaited use in my mom’s apartment, the ingredients that outlived their purchaser. 

Now, I don’t expect all things in our possession to be perfectly ‘used’ when our time comes, and often our items will inevitably display the unpredictability of death when it happens. We’ll find half-finished shampoo bottles, new towels, and a dish in the sink that was planned to be washed. We cannot use everything, but what a shame it would be to never make an occasion special by its use. 

Now I don’t want this message to fall into a praise for hedonism, or to imply that we should become hyper-consumerist in nature, but instead to question our sense of waste. If everything we love is saved for a better day, we enter a race against time that we can only hope to win. If I save my favourite ingredients for a moment more special than this, I compete with inevitable cessation, either of myself or the ingredient, whichever moulds first. 

It is clear to me that when we speak of objects, specifically in the context of consumption, we enter a conversation about capitalism and systems of production. I want to be as straightforward as I can that this is not a call to overuse, but to make necessary use. 

Let me give you an example. I will inevitably buy more pants if the ones I currently have can only be worn when I go to the post office. I have decided that these pants are perfect for such an occasion and are therefore reserved for those circumstances. Now if I go to the grocery store, I’ll need different pants. I have limited the capacity of the object to serve its purpose. I have become wasteful in my hoarding and wasteful in my belief that I need multiple items to fill that gap of everyday functionality. 

Here, the effort to avoid waste becomes wasteful itself. We say, I’ll keep this umbrella for a rainy day, in the meantime, I will use this other umbrella. Now I have two. Although I doubt many of us have special umbrellas, we can still ask ourselves about our possessions: Do we have more than what we need because we are worried about wearing out what we love? Is it a matter of expense? Is it a matter of loss?

Now, this is not to say that you cannot have things that feel special in nature, but perhaps it is also necessary to make more moments special so that these things become more useful. If I have a favourite perfume, perhaps I do not use it daily. However, I may expand my definitions of what moments deserve the perfume’s use. Maybe I can do so in moments I hope to romanticize or feel more beautiful. Maybe I can allow myself to use this vial of perfume to bring more joy into my life. Maybe I shouldn’t fear its ending before I enjoy its presence.

I want to really stress that it is a privilege to use more expensive things more regularly, and I am not trying to dismiss the fears around ruining our favourite things especially if they happen to be more expensive. I understand that some things are difficult or costly to replace, and cost aside, lost sentiment can still seem irreplaceable. The goal, however, is not to find ways to continue the cycle of consumption, but perhaps to engage more intentionally with our consumption. I believe that this relationship does result in an overall decrease in the behaviours of hyper-consumption, primarily through a shift in attention toward our relationship with waste.

The same is true when we move toward the consumption and use of experiences and sensations. We may become restrictive in our allocation of celebration because we fear taking away from the novelty of success, milestones, or any joyful experience. We adopt scarcity in our evaluation of what defines an important moment. We deprive ourselves of the opportunity to acknowledge joy in hopes of preserving this definition. It becomes habitual to gatekeep joy from ourselves. It is not shameful to wish for intermittent ecstasy and bliss, but I can promise you that we have no shortage of these sensations. The saturation of joy in our lives is not a determinant in how enjoyable even our greatest moments become. We just have more joy, more often. 

Can we become resourceful in what we have to make the most of life? Can we utilize these small importances to bring joy and presence into our experiences? Can we audit what we have in an effort to waste less; less opportunities for added meaning wasted, less moments unconcerned with how much we truly use? 

This is all to say that perhaps we can be wasteful in our desire to preserve our joys, from objects to experiences. There is truly no need to save so much for a future joy when it results in a pattern of deprivation. We can access it here, whenever we take advantage of the opportunity, in small, meaningful ways. 

So this was an essay about preservation but it was mainly about waste and how we hold our celebrations and specialness in containers to keep them special, as if the everyday moments of our lives aren’t special enough, as if our time isn’t special enough. So use your finest dishes for a regular Tuesday afternoon, run a bath with your favourite oils, make a celebration of your life by becoming less wasteful, by sharing with yourself the opportunity to utilize our resources. Lest we become purists in our sense of the worthy, may we expand our definitions to enjoy more of life.