When I was seven, I was appointed a CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate) named Marilyn, who gifted me this jar filled with a sachet of jelly beans for Valentine’s Day. As a gesture of affection, love, and cheer where I didn’t get to see my parents a lot or live in our home, and instead lived with my grandparents for a year, I wanted to preserve it forever. I kept the jar and repurposed it to hold whatever pens or stationery I had at the time on my desk. I’ve lived with my parents, my grandparents, in California, in Massachusetts during high school, and I came back to the West Coast for college. When I couldn’t bring it home to wherever I was moving, I kept it wrapped in tissue paper in boxes that stayed in a storage unit so that it wouldn’t break from movers. Every time I unpacked it and re-examined it over the last thirteen years, I noticed the paint was slightly chipping or the patterned hearts were changing. When I moved to a new home in Massachusetts, I hadn’t seen the jar in four years. I packed it with me to my family’s home in California in a suitcase at the start of summer break before freshman year at UCI. Now I use it to store lip balms. Today, I think about bringing it to a shop or studio where it can get repainted and touched up. I still keep in touch with Marilyn as she has supported me through much of my life, in pivotal moments like my decision to attend college in California and in small moments like this jar. We catch up over lunch or dinner whenever I’m back home from school during break.
