I need to confess.. I don’t want you to get a wrong picture of me, as a shopaholic.
I like everything old.
I recycle everything I can.
I buy green.
I hate waste.
No, I take it back a little bit, I love shopping and love knowing what’s the next in thing, but I like things that are timeless. I like things that have a story to tell.
When we move, the movers never seem to understand why the almost new looking bookshelves can stay for the garage sale, but I demand them to be careful with my old Singer sewing machine, the blue glass and china collections, or they don’t understand why we carry along the old travel trunks while our new Sampsonites look so handy.
When we arrive to a new place and it is time to open up the boxes and set up a new home, it’s not the new things that I enjoy seeing the most. I know that if my
espresso machine or Bose surround system got damaged in the move, the insurance will cover it and we’ll just go and buy a new one.
But my old books get a special pat on the back, and a smile when I lovingly display them in the bookshelf. The Singer gets a new nook, and the antique type writer along with it. My old Turku poster will get a special spot on the wall, so do the black and white family photos. The demitasse coffee cups my Grandmother gave me when I moved to college will get their special spot.
In the changing addresses, in the new houses and ever changing home decor, our collections of “old junk” has always had a special spot. It’s not just old things to us, it’s the memories that come with it.
