The Collection

It’s strange how nostalgia can go in circles.

Around 2015, my husband and I went through some kind of half-hysterical collecting phase. We went to flea markets and bought everything from vinyl records to CDs that reminded us of our childhood.

Eventually, we had several shelves just for our CDs. Everything that didn’t fit ended up in boxes in our wardrobes. Boxes we almost never opened.

After a few years, I started wondering whether this was actually a very sensible way to live. We’ve always rented and moved quite a lot, and carrying all those boxes from one home to another got a little ridiculous.

So we did something about it.

We spent a day sorting through our LPs, CDs and PlayStation games and got rid of at least 70% of the collection. At the time, it felt like a very good idea.

Lately I’ve started thinking about it differently.

Streaming services keep getting more expensive, while giving us less control over what we actually get to keep. The same thing has happened with games. More and more things are tied to licences rather than something you can actually own.

Suddenly, all those old CDs and games don’t seem quite as pointless anymore. So I’m slowly building our little collection back up.

The record player is out again, and I recently ordered a CD/DVD player. Next, I’ll probably dig out some of our old game consoles too.

There’s still not enough space in our home, but I’m ridiculously excited about it.

Somehow, after ten or fifteen years of everything being digital, I had forgotten how nice it is to actually hold an album in your hands. Looking at the artwork, reading the lyrics, putting on a record and deciding what you want to listen to.

I suppose we’ve come full circle. I just hope we don’t have to move again anytime soon.

Also I’m very happy about getting to experience a childhood where we had physical media as a primary way of consuming media.