What dreams may come... And go.

Years ago my dream was shattered.

Let me explain. (Please add snarky voice when you read this in your head)

Are you old enough to remember waay back to when chocolate brown was de riguer for kitchen cabinets? Chocolate brown doors...  and benchtops and door handles of daffodil yellow, lime green or orange..
That gives away your and my ages, you know, so maybe stop nodding.
Wow were the 70s really that bad?

So anyways, back in the day, we young womenfolk had a cute tradition of keeping a "glory box" which we filled with treasures of many shapes and sizes in preparation for the day of our divine wedlock, after which we would be mistress of a domicile.
(Gag)
And these various treasures would form the basis of our domesticity, for within the confines of the "glory box" could be found tea towels, towels, china plates, cutlery and anything else great aunt Ethel thought we might need.

Not to be outdone, I also started to fill my chest with oddities (a wooden storage chest, stay with me here) and amongst my prized pieces was my Tupperware dream team. 
You may remember the most awesome set; the breakfast delight pieces which were mustard coloured? There was a bread holder which precisely fitted one loaf of crusty bread, a butter container which held precisely a pound of butter, a sugar and creamer set, and, because I hosted a party, I received a bonus gift of the triple jam holders in the matching colour! (Oh joyous rapturous wonder) If you're too young to understand that last sentence or two, be thankful.

Added to this I had my large collection of canisters of assorted sizes, all in lime green (because my dream kitchen would be chocolate brown and green, of course, duh). So my Tupperware dream was born while I was still a fledgling adult. I married in my teens - maybe because I was so anxious to use my plastic fantastic, maybe for love - and kept the Tupperware hidden for when our real lives would begin.

The life of my dreams.

In my dream, we were a wonderfully loving family, and I saw us, two adults and two children, all four blonde, with white shirts and white pants, sitting outside on a timber deck on our picnic table style setting, wind blowing my hair as I casually laughed at my husbands uproarious wit, serving my children breakfast from my delightful Tupperware breakfast set. They sat transfixed in wonder at the glory of the moment, my husband sharing witticisms and astute political opinion as he read the newspaper out loud.

We prepared meals together, all four of us helping prepare, cook and serve meals for which the ingredients came from (all together now...) the Tupperware.
Salads would be divinely displayed in Tupperware, the salt and pepper shakers plus the oil and vinegar servers were all matching T stuff and.. 
(wow we're impressive, aren't we? Don't you wish you grew up in this family?) ...

... then somewhere along the way, i met reality.
We ended up with four children, all blonde, all born with 5.5 years.  None wore white because I couldn't stand keeping it clean, and we didn't have a timber deck or a picnic table style dining. We had a dirt area which would one day (please God, one day) be a pergola and some odd chairs we sat around a rickety third hand outside table.
The kids tipped their bowls, slapped each others hands away from the milk and sugar, poked holes in the bread, fell off their chairs and laughed uproariously at each others farts.
My husband and I shared witty comments, by which I mean sarcastic rejoinders, by which i mean arguments, about the lack of money and how we were going to afford the car repairs and that the kids needed new shoes again and it wasn't my fault they kept growing and no they couldn't hand-them-down.

I had long given up using the Tupperware for actual food. It became perfect for bath time play (those suckers are good pouring toys), sand pit toys - they scoop sand like nobody's business, pencil holders (The number of coloured pencils you can fit in a one loaf sized container may stagger you. Or it may stagger you that we had that many pencils)
My lime green canisters held Barbie shoes and play dough cutters, lego pieces and the occasional chip because seriously, you can't see what's in those lime green containers and you keep buying more stuff when we've already got plenty you just can't see it in the pantry and how ridiculous are they anyway?

Instead of heading out together on date nights to see good quality drama, we stayed home, watched TV and tried to avoid getting involved in the kids night time morning time any time of day time dramas.
Instead of sitting together of an evening after dinner listening to music, we either yelled at each other over the wiggles or collapsed exhausted in front of the TV too shattered to think let alone appreciate the soundtrack that had become our lives.
Instead of growing our own vegetables and creating healthy nutritious and totally awesome food together, encouraging the kids to try new foods, we ate the crusts off the peanut butter sandwiches and the pizza and we grew very fond of macaroni cheese.

Nearly thirty years later, I look back and see so many dreams trampled along the way.
I see so many thoughts dissolved and plans gone awry.
I see so many things I thought important relegated to becoming background noise.

But I see that just like the Tupperware became useful in a new existence, so did we. 
Neither of us planned four kids so close together.
Neither of us planned five house moves in five years in amongst having babies.
Neither of us planned for our lives to become so irreconcilably intertwined with our children's.
But neither of us planned to be strong enough to overcome four kids so close in age; all non sleepers; three refluxers and oh the nappies....
Neither of us thought we'd become so adept at packing a house, making new friends, moving on and finding our way.
Neither of us planned that when the kids left home there'd be a big empty noise left behind.
Neither of us planned to find so much fun in the loss of the dream.
Neither of us expected to grow to like Tupperware again, either.