Once I was 5 and tried to pay for a purple lucky rabbit foot keychain in pennies. The woman at the counter just about laughed herself out of the store. It was the first time I had ever purchase something alone and I was proud of it.
When I was 8 I gave up on my love of classical music. Britney Spears enthralled me in a way Chopin never could. Her CD bounced in the plastic bag by my side as I beamed up at my mother--a second purchase.
At 16 I bought my first box of condoms for my brother's friend that was too scared to ask his own sister about sex. I was proud to be his interim sibling and keep him safe.
Before I turned 25 I bought myself a box of tissues and sobbed joyfully in the dirty, black-tiled bathroom in our office because I had been accepted into graduate school.
What each of these moments of purchase indicates is a time when, without realizing, I demanded value. To find value means discovering remnants of your true self in what could otherwise appear to be negligible. It is at once admitting your own insignificance and reveling in it. Buying a rabbits foot or a box of condoms are the small, boring reminders that I am free to choose exactly what is valuable to me.
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