Matching pantry containers

I want matching pantry containers. I watched a few YouTube videos by an influencer with a huge pantry filled with these beautiful matching clear containers with labels, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. 

My pantry has containers, but they are not matching, and clear, with vinyl labels in a lovely cursive typeface. 

I want these containers, but there are several reasons I shouldn’t buy them including:

• fitting out a pantry with containers like this is wildly expensive.
• I have a bunch of perfectly functional containers already and replacing them would be wasteful. I am not perfect at living a low-waste lifestyle, but I try.
• my pantry organisation is already totally functional so getting the containers would only be an improvement to the aesthetics, which feels unnecessary.

And so I will not buy these containers. For now. I ruminate on the reasons for and against buying these containers over and over. Occasionally I’ll add the containers to my cart and then close the tab at checkout. I’ve looked at picture after picture of these containers on Instagram, imagining what things would be like if I had such a lovely-looking pantry (not any different, but with matching containers).

All the while I am very aware of what upper-middle-class privileged nonsense it is to have so much space to be thinking about containers. You might read this post and think I am shallow, and that would be a fair assumption based on what I’ve shared so far. 

The truth is, I also consume content about and ruminate over more important things. I’ve been reading books on race and colonialism, and thinking about the effects it has had on my life and those around me. I wonder how I’m going to raise two children to be good adults amongst the overwhelmingly patriarchal culture in Australia. How can I build a career in the Tech Industry without engaging in the exploitative behaviours that usually drive success. How am I contributing to Global Warming? 

I’ve had friends and family who have lived with anxiety, and from listening to their experiences I know I haven’t experienced that. I used to think I wasn’t a worrier, as I always have been very good at keeping my shit together and staying calm and collected, even under extreme duress. Lately I’ve been thinking that I’m actually just very good at internalising and compartmentalising. I don’t wear my stress “on the outside”. 

If I slow down and really listen to the way my internal voice talks to me all day, it’s usually coming up with a list of things I need to do to be better. The underlying message is that I’m not enough. Or that I could at least be “more enough”. I’m trying to work on this, trying to be kinder to myself. Although sometimes that can lead to me berating myself for not being kind enough. Another way to not meet the mark! 

So sometimes when my brain is tired from strategising on how I can be the best mother, wife, friend, colleague, or citizen of the world, I scroll through pictures of pristine white pantries with perfect containers. I give in to consumerism’s siren song for a while and indulge in home organisation fantasies. Until somebody needs my attention and I’m snapped back in to my not-perfect non-matching container life.