I love old things, found things, hand-me-down things, thrifted things, vintage things, re-purposed things, upcycled things, basically any thing that isn't fresh off of the conveyor belt.
This frequently confounds my husband because I make a reasonably good living and often could afford the new version of whatever old thing I've discovered and carted home. In fact, it would often take me less time, energy, searching or what have you to just get the new thing... But, that's part of the enjoyment I get out of old things. Going to the toilet paper holder section of whatever big box store is closest, selecting said toilet paper holder and coming home is just not all that interesting. Finding an aged wooden tool box in the back corner of an antique store filled mostly with dusty Buddhas of suspect origin and lace doilies, bringing it home, dusting it off, and turning it into a toilet paper holder, now that's the thrill of the hunt.
Additionally, there's the environmentalist in me who's aware that for every old thing I reuse, resources aren't being used to make something new to replace it. Certainly there's a bit of a lag time there, and it's not such a simple one-for-one equation because the chain of supply and demand shifts subtly and slowly, but I do know that eventually if fewer people are buying new toilet paper holders, fewer new toilet paper holders will be made. At which point I can think of a few people who might accuse me of being anti-worker because now there are fewer toilet-paper-holder making jobs to be had, but I think I'll save that argument for another time.
Because really, the environmentalist reason for reusing and the thrill-of-the-hunt reason for reusing, while both quite valid and accurate, are mostly on the surface.
The fundamental reason there's a wooden tool box holding my toilet paper and I eat my breakfast at a (totally kick-ass, I might add) vintage formica table with chrome and pink vinyl chairs goes beyond style, beyond saving resources, and beyond the sport that is finding that just right thing. The fundamental reason I prefer old things is that I'm afraid of new things.
That's right. I'm afraid of new things. To an extent, I come by this fear honestly. I remember my mother giving my (now departed) Nana a new nightgown for Christmas one year with the admonishment "Now, you have to use it. You can't just keep it in your closet and pet it," which at the age of 11 or so, I thought was a pretty weird thing to say. Except that this past Christmas, my mother gave me a gorgeous cashmere robe, with the admonishment "Now, you have to use it..." and it still took me about two months to actually take it out of the box, stop just petting it, and put it on. I'm actually really proud of myself about that robe. I have worn it pretty much every morning since I finally took it out of the box, and I only freaked out a little bit the first time I splashed soapy dish water on it, and yesterday I actually picked some pilling off the sleeve without skipping a beat. And, it's lovely. It's soft, and luxurious, and it helps me feel better about hefting my pregnant self out of bed every day to face the world, which is exactly why my Mom picked it out. But I still have a little moment every morning where I think about just petting it and putting it back in the box.
The thing about new things is, there's such promise there. They've never been used, which makes their use somehow monumental in my mind, like every thing I do with the new thing has to be just right, or I've failed it, or brought it down a notch from it's original promise. Now, an old thing has already been worn in. The promise of an old thing is about resurrection because if it's available to me, that means someone else got rid of it, so even just my act of choosing it and giving it a test drive redeems the object somewhat. I have this sense with new things that it's all down hill from here, but with old things, it can only get better. And, if an old thing doesn't work out, well, that's ok. At least I got a bit more use out of it before passing it along the chain. But if a new thing doesn't work out, I feel a very unpleasant sense of regret mixed with a vague feeling of failure. Which is maybe a little crazy.
I've worked really hard to be able to embrace new things along with the old, to take a deep breath and take them out of the box, and to try to have faith that it's not all down hill from here, but that bringing that new thing into my life & using it could turn it into an old thing with a valuable story all of my own making.
And yes, there's a metaphor here.
No comments:
Post a Comment