Dozy Writes

I recently shared my love of stationery with you all and in the process, I provided a list of my favourite stationery items. It got me thinking about other items that I have collected during my lifetime and once I started taking a note of everything it turned into a slightly terrifying list.

See for yourself the variety of items I have collected over the years.

Stamps

I have no idea how this started. I don’t recall as a child ever announcing to my family that I wanted to become a philatelist but somehow I ended up with a bag of old stamps and an accompanying stamp album so it appeared that’s what I became. 

I took my stamp collection into school once so my friends could also share the joy and unbelievably, they didn’t bully me! Instead, they got stuck in alongside me, sorting through the stamps and adding them to the album.

It was a school in the country, there wasn’t much entertainment.

Dolls

I had a large collection of dolls from all over the world. I’m not sure if this concept still exists but back in the 1980s, when you went abroad, you could buy dolls which were styled in the national costume of that country. As a result, any time we, or anyone we knew, went abroad, I was given a doll in traditional dress.  

I had around 40 or 50 dolls, which included the ever popular Spanish Flamenco dancer, a male doll in traditional Greek dress and an Inuit doll decked out in fur. I even had a 1980s British Airways Air Hostess.

I was obsessed with these dolls and loved looking at them and counting how many there were. I’m pretty sure that my dad had to keep adding shelves above my bed to accommodate the ever increasing numbers.

I also collected Barbie dolls and had a large collection of them too although they weren’t treated quite as reverentially in comparison.

Cuddly toys

My collection of soft toys included a frog-shaped black velvet bean bag that my Grampa bought for me when I was born, a hideous 1970s giant pink mouse with a leather tail and a variety of rag dolls, bears and fluffy birds.

These toys were helpful whenever I was playing at being a teacher, the toys became my class of students who would gather round to listen to me as I prattled on.

The cuddly toys all gradually made their way to charity shops where, I’m assured, they lived long and happy lives with new families.

Plastic carrier/shopping bags

OK, bear with me here, I know this one sounds ridiculous but I loved to collect plastic carrier bags from different shops. 

I think it started when River Island started producing some artistic carrier bags in the 1990s, and suddenly, it became something that I collected. Naturally once people knew I was collecting them they started to donate items to my collection.

I think I had over 150 different types of carrier bags, some of which were highly unique but I gradually started to get rid of them by using them to bag up some of the other items I collected for a charity shop donation.

In hindsight, it’s a shame I let them go because there is now a Plastic Bag Museum – clearly I was ahead of my time. I’m sure they would have appreciated some of the bags in my collection. Probably not the River Island ones though because there are still thousands of them lurking in the attics of women in their forties and fifties.

Books

I used to collect books back in the days when we all read real physical books that we held in our hands. 

I was never a fan of hardbacks because they were too heavy to read in bed but occasionally, there wasn’t another option. Thankfully, my first husband was remarkably accommodating in allowing me to rest my book against his back as he slept. I can’t imagine why we broke up.

At the height of my collection, I had over 1000 books and a ridiculous number of bookcases to house them in. 

They were filed in alphabetical order by the author’s surname and organised into different categories. Clearly I was a budding librarian but I couldn’t have worked in a real library on account of the necessity for silence –  I was far too talkative for that.

My dream was to one day have an enormous library room in a house, however, I started to get fed up lugging boxes of books up and down stairs every time I moved house so my collection got smaller with each house move.

The introduction of eReaders has made house moves easier and still allows me to have a sizeable collection but in a less cumbersome way.

Shoes

My shoe collection started in my teens. I used to travel far and wide to find unique, quirky shoes. This was the 1990s so huge chunky platforms were all the rage and I had a diverse collection.

The one thing I always enjoyed about shoes was that, no matter what my body shape, they were a way for me to express my personality.

Kitsch plastic ballerina shoes sat in my wardrobe alongside towering platform shoes, bright red Mary Jane heels and vibrant trainers.

I have always said that if I ruled the world I would insist that everyone owned at least one pair of red shoes because red shoes make me happy. For those of you who may be worried about this prospect, I can clarify that I am happy to allow various shades of red including oxblood or maroon and the shoes could be any type of footwear – I’m not completely unreasonable.

1950s dresses and accessories

I had a fascination with 1950s fashion as a child owing to the TV show Happy Days and films such as Grease and La Bamba. I could think of nothing better than to wear 1950s style dresses with voluminous petticoats.

I rediscovered my love of this style in my 30s thanks to my second husband who gave me the confidence to dress in whatever style I wanted. Soon I had an impressive selection of dresses and matching accessories.

I wore this style for many years and I still love it but the way I have lived my life has changed and sadly, there just wasn’t the space for the large petticoats and circle skirts any more so I passed them on to some other 1950s fashion lovers.

Wedding dresses (and husbands)

Some of my friends have wondered if I like to collect wedding dresses and husbands given that I am twice married and divorced.

Even worse, some people have joked that the reason I got married twice was because I love wedding cake. 

I really don’t. 

I despise fruit cake with a passion that I rarely display in such negative terms. Even the act of trying to say the word ‘raisin’ has my lip curling upwards in disgust. I just don’t understand the appeal of it so I would never get married just because I enjoyed the deplorable concoction that is fruit cake.

It’s probably wise for me to clarify here that at no point did I view either of my marriages as items to add to a collection although I must admit that I do enjoy a party, particularly when it’s a family gathering and we have a cheesy disco or a proper Scottish ceilidh. 

These days, most of our family gatherings occur at funerals which is somewhat depressing and not really appropriate for ceilidh dancing.

Road furniture

This was a phase during my later teenage years and my dream was to one day have a bedroom full of various road signs and other pieces of road furniture. 

I started off with a traffic cone and soon after I procured the accompanying flashing light for said traffic cone. On the evening in question, I was driving past some roadworks when the flashing light mysteriously entered the car as if by magic and with no assistance from me or my brother.

For a minute or so I drove along the road in the dark with the car interior lighting up in bright yellow flashes like a travelling disco whilst my brother worked like a demon to switch it off. Hats off to him, there was a special technique that he mastered and soon I was able to enjoy the novelty of a traffic cone with a functioning flashing light in my bedroom. 

Sadly, I was unable to procure the ultimate item of road furniture – a diversion sign – as there just wasn’t enough space in my bedroom.

Soon after, I met the man who became my first husband and my desire to collect these items disappeared as I contemplated a more mature life of marriage, mortgages and life insurance. I was 19 years old.

Some other collectables

There are too many to list in detail but some of my other collections have included craft materials, thimbles, vintage cutlery and kitchen gadgets as well as some less tangible items such as hobbies.

I’m not sure if it counts but I also used to collect drinks off tables in a bar at the end of the night so I could fit in some last minute drinking. In addition, I used to collect lost souls and other people’s emotions which turned out to be quite draining.  I’ve since tried to step away from these collections – they seemed particularly unhealthy.

Why do we like to collect things?

It’s interesting to look back at these items and wonder why I did it all. I know I’m not alone in this so why is it that so many of us have a need to collect things? 

I did a little bit of research into why we like to collect things and there are many possible reasons.

Top reasons for collecting things

Nostalgia

The thrill of the hunt

Desire for completion

Being part of a community

Investment

Social recognition or status

Stress management

Creation of an identity

Compulsion

When it comes to my own collecting habits I recognise quite a few of the reasons listed above. I’ve always enjoyed the satisfaction that comes from searching for an item and then completing a collection and I certainly enjoy a bit of nostalgic memorabilia.

I used to keep an old shoe box full of bits and pieces that I amassed during my relationship with my first husband. It included the standard items such as celebration cards and concert tickets but amongst those items was a giant jelly bean which he threw at me during our first ever argument. Why on earth would I keep something that signified our first argument?

I think it was partly because I’ve always liked to commemorate events, to record something in the way that a historian might. I also used to attach sentimental value to anything and everything that I came into contact with. In addition, I may have exhibited quite a few compulsive tendencies over the years meaning that I was likely to get carried away with whatever idea I focused on.

Whatever my reasons, it became apparent over time that I didn’t need to keep every item I came into contact with but it took me a while to reach that point.

Collecting: hobby vs hoarding

Looking at this has made me wonder. When does the act of collecting turn from a harmless hobby to the more serious behaviours of compulsion or hoarding which are often masking deeper underlying issues?

It’s hard to know what the answer is. I suppose in part it may be when the need to collect starts to cause difficulties in your life. Perhaps it’s when you cease to care about anything else including your relationships.

I guess there is a different point where each of us will draw a line about when a habit is unhealthy and perhaps we just have to be mindful of the need to check our own behaviours.

Although my collections never reached the point where they were inhibiting my relationships, I’m not sure if I would class them as harmless. I think there may have been a lot of compulsive behaviours driving it all.

I suspect that collecting things was also a way of me trying to find my identity without fully understanding that the collections were just things – they didn’t actually define me as a person.

Moving on from collecting things

My desire to collect things became more difficult when I started to live a more nomadic lifestyle. It was time to let all of those things go.

This didn’t happen overnight. I began to downsize at least ten years ago because I knew that I wanted to travel and I also realised that, as much as I loved having all of these things, the joy of possessing them had turned into frustration at feeling trapped by them.

I feel so much freer since I let go of the majority of my possessions but I also recognise that there is still a part of me that wants to accumulate things. That said, I feel that I am able to let go of things much more easily. I have learned over time that things come and go so they don’t hold as much importance to me as they once did.

Nowadays I try to stick to collecting more abstract items such as stories and experiences – hopefully they won’t take up too much space in my mind although my perimenopausal brain may disagree with that sentiment.