On a sunny day my partner surprised me with an equally sunny Jeep. She proudly announced to me that she had purchased her first vehicle with four wheels in years. One of the last markers of a truly single lifestyle, as before she drove a motorcycle, with no room for my fat ass on the back.

Her excitement spilled out as she gave me the grand tour of what to some would seem as a junked up older model Jeep with really no value. To her it meant so much more. A strong and durable relic of what used to be, no planned obsolescence, no plastic that faded and cracked. Hard metal, sturdy and durable like our future….It was a physical representation of all the wonderful things to come. An investment that preceded a new home and a family. A future that was sunshine yellow.

The following week the clouds came.

I pulled up to her house only to find her sunshine missing. Evaporated rather. Someone had stolen Teagan’s Jeep.

At first the sentiment between us was just “ It’s only a car, we can get another one.” And that is true, but as time went on it became clear that they stole a little bit more than that.

When you realize you’ve been robbed by the very community you reside in it’s like a gutteral punch in the throat. It’s fair to be upset and angry at the world. To want to burn it to the ground and take the system down with you in a fiery blaze but how does it further your life or mine to steal within your community? Pied pipers. Backward Robin Hoods. Stealing from one another in a big circle jerk only to be left barren of any sense of morality, ethics, or a dollar to your name.

I am not mad that someone was desperate enough to run off with our sunshine, I am upset that the system has devolved so far that this was the only option in their mind.

Oh the cold and lascivious nature of “powers that be” that lead us to turn on one another, rather than ban together and take them down. If we have no community and humanity what is left? When will this end?

Where the hell did our sunshine go?