I've always had to fight the collecting bug, from the time that I started accumulating model horses and equitation books as a kid to the year I moved to New York and started haunting antique shops in search of luminous blue and green decanters made by the Blenko glass company in the 1960's. Each new bottle would enchant and delight me and I loved studying the curves and shapes and little bubbles that made each decanter unique and special. Every time I thought I'd decided upon a favorite though, I'd peek through the chain-links of a flea market and spot that distinctive translucent shape of a new Blenko conquest.
They all looked lovely sitting there together on my window sill, but every time I had to pack up to move to a new apartment, I was reminded how unweildy and fragile these items were and the ever-growing collection literally became a complicated sort of baggage in my life. I always worried about breaking them or losing them, even the ones that weren't as perfect or beautiful, like the clunky dark green decanter with the mass produced stopper. Because after all, that was the first one I bought and it reminded me of that time in my life and I don't like letting things go.
And there was always a sense of trying to find "my missing piece" in the quest for the perfect decanter. I could never escape the sense that some little unassuming shop was hiding some exquisite piece in its dark, dusty shadows and I just wasn't looking hard enough. Three years ago I was rummaging through the 25th Street Flea Market stalls and I saw my Blenko holy grail...a tall, shimmering moss green decanter, two and a half feet from base to stopper, exotic and futuristic, straight out of some space age vision of the future, 2004 home decor as viewed from 1962.
I carried my new prize home and realized that it simply dwarfed my other treasures and really shone brightest all on it's own. And that was it. That was the end. My addiction was apparently cured. I still love all my Blenkos dearly and my super-Blenko best of all, but now I'm done with it, satisfied, content.
Not that I don't still spend my energies collecting things. There are the marathons and the countries I've visited and the friends I've made and of course the (ex)boyfriends, that I almost always feel compelled to stay friends with even when they're probably not worth the trouble. It's good that at least these things don't contribute to the mess in my apartment, but I hate to think about what the inside of my brain must look like.
