Ownership

As proposed by Jean-Paul Sartre, ownership extends beyond just tangible things. It means more than just owning every day, common things like notes, photographs, books, papers, and pencils. Ownership overflows its "tangible" boundaries to include intangible things as well, like people, thoughts, and memories. According to Sartre, as we become proficient in some skill, or we know someone or something thoroughly means that we “own” it. My family is mine, just like I also own my thoughts and memories. They are intangible, yet they are mine since as long as can remember; the intangible ownership Sartre spoke about.

Although the tangible things surrounding us; like our  homes, clothes, paintings, photographs, books,  and knick-knacks are ours, they’re all easy to show ownership to. They all mean just a simple trip to our favorite store and a full wallet, or some free time with a paintbrush or looking through a camera, reading words off a page.  But, the other things we own, that we  put tags reading “mine,” mean more than spending Christmas money to fill our closet, or coming home to a nice warm bed,  or putting colors on an empty canvas.  Our family, thoughts, and memories become ours with more meaning than photographs and new shoes will ever carry.

I’ve owned my parents since I first laid my eyes on them as I became theirs too, when we created the bond existent between every infant and their parents; usually the first people they see. They are mine to call mom, and dad. They were mine to grow with, are mine to laugh with, mine to cry with, and mine to live with. It was love at first sight, “you’re mine” at first glance. As Sartre proposes, we have ownership of intangible things when we come to know them. They were mine to take care of me, mine to feed me, to clean up my messes, mine to hear my cries at night and to spend sleepless nights rocking me to sleep, and in those moments I came to know my parents on a deeper level, to create a deeper bond and ownership than I will ever know or have with any human being. I gained ownership of their love and affection, and of course attention. I will always be their “baby,” as they will always be MY mom and dad. Although that love, attention, and affection of theirs that I call “mine” begins to be less apparent as I grow up, it is still there, and it will always be mine like it was since the beginning.

After the first sight as newborn, when I claimed ownership of my parents, my family also became mine. They were mine to carry me, they were mine to feed me, to buy me gifts, to make me giggle as I grew from bouncing baby to the young woman I am now. Although my family was and still can be obnoxious, crazy, loud, different, and quarrelsome, they are still mine. I’ve known them for 17 years, and I have a deeper acquaintance with them than I will ever have with anyone else, not including my parents, of course. My  brother, aunts, cousins, my grandmothers, my grandfathers, my uncles; they are all mine. Their love, affection, attention, and their yelling, my aunts’ goofing around, my eldest aunt’s witch laughter that makes me laugh until I cry, my grandmother’s fly-away mind, already showing signs of Alzheimer’s, my uncle’s rock and roll soul, my cousins ‘diverse personalities; they’re all mine, as they were from the beginning. I’ve claimed them, and held them dear to my heart, and these traits they’ve conveyed to me became a part of me: MINE.

The one thing that’s mine, and no one else’s, are my thoughts. Since as long as I can think, they’ve been there. I’ve been acquainted with the voice in my head since as long as I could think straight, and it has become mine. I have mastered the intangible thoughts in my head. Thoughts of school, “oh my god I have so much homework,” thoughts of friends, thoughts of family, and thoughts that don’t make sense at all. I’ve become proficient in knowing my thoughts, knowing the inner voice inside my head, gaining ownership to that what only I can hear.

My memories, the intangible ones, not recorded in fluffy, glittered 13-year-old journals with locks that I grew up believing could not be opened without the key, or photographs; some stained with age, others from outdated disposable cameras, and ancient VHS tapes of first birthdays and trips to Disney world, are all stored in my mind. They are mine, and mine to remember. I’ve grown to known them thoroughly, from reminiscing the past, although some are already beginning to fade despite my young age. But, even if they are forgotten, they were always mine. Even if they were of other people, strangers, strange places, I grew attached to them, and I labeled them as mine and filed them into the manila folders in my head, to be mine, and visited whenever I so pleased.

Tangible things tend to fade after a while. They lose their pretty colors, they lose that “shiny new toy” effect, we become disinterested in them after a while, and set them aside, and they no longer are ours.  Our families, our thoughts, and memories, on the other hand, although sometimes possibly pestering and disappointing, are harder to lose interest and ownership of. We throw away old books or give them away to Goodwill, but I can’t just give my grandma away because she’s forgetful, or my aunt away because she has the most obnoxious laugh in the world. I can’t just dismiss a though from my head after I get tired of hearing it, or forgetting a memory because it’s lost its emotion and nostalgia. Our family is ours from beginning to end. The meaning a new blouse just bought at the store is non-comparable to the meaning of being someone’s child, someone’s grandchild, cousin, niece or nephew, someone’s brother or sister. A family is not just a color or a pattern, a photograph or words on a page. The meaning we put behind our family, our thoughts, and memories is what proves our true ownership. My family means to me long conversations, birthday parties spent together, arguments, and 149019hours of getting to know each other, creating a bond that will last forever; making them mine. My thoughts mean to me things I was afraid of saying out loud, things that invaded my mind, things I could not get off my mind, and things that only I knew; mine. My memories; they’re also mine. More than just the faded images of faces and places, but records made that one day I will be able to tell my successors. These intangible things that we cannot hold, cannot really see, and cannot fully explain ownership of, are ours, just as the tangible things we own are ours too.