What about those collectibles?

What about those collectibles?

Who doesn’t love a teddy bear? Oh, so soft and squishy. How can you possibly not fall in love with their sweet little faces – button noses, chubby cheeks, and those adoring eyes. They look at you with acceptance and love.

Can you tell my collectibles are teddy bears? Or at least they used to be. I had them displayed all over my house. They were on shelves at the ceiling in our bedroom, in a glassed-in cabinet in our home office, sitting on chairs or rockers, or on the bed. You name it; my growing teddy bear collection was taking over every room in the house.

Nothing like crawling into bed each night with all those eyes staring down from above! I am thankful my hubby was so accepting of my fetish, which had gotten to the point of irrational reverence or obsessive devotion.

I sound like a nutcase as if I saw those bears as real, living beings. Although I knew they were not, it’s easy to be fooled by something with eyes, nose, mouth, and ears! And, of course, they get assigned a name, as if they are our pets – living, breathing animals.

This angle is not only true for us teddy bear lovers. Others experience it with their “human-like” collections, such as dolls and other stuffed animals. We get attached to those adorable faces that look back at us as if they are real.

How could you let them go as they look at you and beg you to keep them? Certainly, when it is time to declutter, curate, and tidy up, those items must not apply. It is why so many of us who collect these items struggle to say “bye-bye,” dear ones – it is time to go.

I did eventually let go of my entire teddy bear collection. Although in full disclosure, I have a small box in my garage storage with the more miniature bears from my glassed-in cabinet. I boxed them up, dated the box, and promised myself that if I did not display them within a specific time frame, it was time to let those go, too.

You know, we all have something we feel compelled to keep or collect – items we see as meaningful and valuable, even if they aren’t to other people. Maybe something from our childhood or past, such as a baptismal dress, wedding dress, special toy, yearbooks, letters and cards from someone dear to us, photographs, or our children’s artwork. Painful as it may be to admit, most of it is not valuable to anyone but us.

And, of course, many of us collect things that we believe have significant monetary value or for investment purposes. Items deemed to be worth way more than we paid for them one day. Or at least we hope so. These include action figure collectibles, jewelry, paintings, watches, antiques, vinyl records, and rare books – to name but a few.

Remember the days of Beany Babies? We collected hundreds of them, and as each new one came out to complete our collection, we decided we must have that one too. So, our collection grew and grew until we might even have thousands. Some today still believe they have value and refuse to part with any of them.

The reasons people collect things are numerous. “Some do it for pleasure; others to learn more about the objects; others seek status or prestige; and many do it to show loyalty to their team, country, or hometown.  

And yet others just get attracted to a genre and form a habit.” Carol Reynolds-Srot, University Editor for University Communications, shared, “she has not met a Snoopy she has not liked.” (Why do we collect things? News @The U)

It is one of our basic human instincts. We like to collect things. It only becomes a problem when those collections get out of control, cause someone else in the household to suffer or grit their teeth as they tolerate, put us into financial harm, or take over whole areas of our life.

Otherwise, collect away! Although may I suggest you curate your collections much like museums. They know not everything gets into the exhibit. Or, in our case, not everything needs to be kept!