Is It Collecting or Hoarding?

When I was maybe around 10 years old, I had a gum collection. Yes, a collection. Of chewing gum. The stuff you stick in your mouth, masticate and enjoy, then discard. But I didn’t actually taste or enjoy most of it.

I bought specialty gum like Japanese Keroppi or Hello Kitty-themed packs from the mall, violet gum or weird flavors from the convenience store, Fruit Stripe, or anything that seemed interesting. And I kept it all in one of those segmented plastic boxes like you’d use for beads or other small craft pieces.

I maybe ate one piece from each package. The rest sat there, slowly hardening until it became as brittle as shale, inedible and useless like the chalky slabs in the baseball card packs.

This waste of time and money had been pushed to the far recesses of my memory until the Target/Liberty of London box holding my stationery collection finally split at the seams after 16 years of service.

First, I mourned the loss of such an iconic box. But more importantly, I realized this was a chance to reorganize my stationery… and see how much I’ve been hoarding over the years.

To be fair, I do mail cards and postcards to friends semi-regularly. And when I’m in an adorable gift/home goods store or museum shop that sells cards, I’ll stock up on a bunch that tickle my fancy so I can send one off to brighten someone’s day as needed. (It does not have to be a birthday! I actually prefer Random Cards In The Mail!)

So I have way more notecards than I need at any given moment, because you just never know. And there are certain pieces that I hold onto because they’re one-offs, because I feel like they’re art, because they’re discontinued and I’ll never be able to buy another, etc. etc.

This is where I start to wonder if the collecting becomes hoarding. When the card is too precious to gift to another.

Sometimes I “resolve” this problem by displaying the wittiest, most emotionally resonant cards on my office bulletin board — a rotating curated selection, if you will.

The related problem is that I also love cool stamps to put on the cards I mail, and there are always way more stamps in my file than I will use. (And I always have to buy two sheets — one for mailing and one for saving because they’re art, mementos, whatever.)

The Post Office just re-released the Mister Rogers stamp, so I’ll have to get another sheet, and definitely the Route 66 stamp set too. And if you think I’m parting with my saved Eames or Roy Lichtenstein stamps, you’re out of your mind.

But honestly, WHY AM I HOLDING ON TO ALL OF THIS? When I die, who is going to care about my few R. Nichols bee notecards? My Eames stamps? My Petra Szilagyi “Pray However to Whatever” postcard from the Like Magic show at MASS MoCA?

I keep telling myself that these things should all go to people I love while we’re all still around to enjoy them, but they also bring me so much joy to look at regularly.

So if you were reading this far, hoping for a tidy resolution on why we should in fact tidy up our spaces, divest ourselves of our far-too-many stickers, stamps, notecards, baseball cards, books, half-finished art projects, markers, tubes of paint, adorable plates we found at Fishs Eddy, and more…

I can’t subscribe to that. I just can’t part with this stuff.

The gum collection did not bring me happiness. It wasn’t something I used in the practical sense nor in the emotional sense. But these keepsakes — the stickers I’m saving for just the right placement on a Yeti bottle or journal, the notecards that go into my scrapbooks — they do have an intangible but crucial role to play.

They are here for my ongoing pleasure and appreciation of life. WHICH IS AN IMPORTANT WAY TO USE SOMETHING.

However, I’m going to send out a few thank-you cards this week to friends and use up some of the precious stationery doing so. And when they get them, they’ll understand why this felt so good to do.