Collections

In my final year at university, I took a quiz determining my strengths. After spending over an hour answering a series of seemingly unrelated questions, the results came back and the word “Input” filled the number one spot. I stared at the word for a long time. Everyone was getting words like empathetic, strategic, and competitive, and I got a word I couldn’t make sense of. I had never heard the word used in the context of a strength before. I mean, what could the word input possibly mean? The word input means I am a collector. I am a collector of ideas, books, quotes, and facts. I am a collector of people, things, relationships, and memories. I am naturally nostalgic and curious. I am constantly looking to absorb new information and incorporate it into my life. I cherish my friendships and relationships and am always seeking to learn from them.

The thing is, I realized this quiz was completely right. I still make my grilled cheese the way my boyfriend did for that one summer going into my junior year of high school. He told me his secret ingredient was garlic salt and I never forgot it. It has been 6 years and I tell people grilled cheese is my specialty dish and I pretend like it’s my secret ingredient now. I still tie my shoelaces a special way because my friend Anna in elementary school tied them that way and I thought it was cool so I learned. To this day, people still ask me where I learned to tie them that way. I still remember all my crush’s birthdays. I still remember all the songs and movies that are special to each person that has been in my life. In fact, many of my favorites came from people I don’t even speak to anymore. You know that feeling when you hear a song and it sounds so familiar- like you can almost remember it playing in the background of your life but you have forgotten all about it? One of my friends in high school told me he called songs like that “grocery store songs”, and I use that term to this day. I still get excited when I find a new grocery store song and wonder if he would think it’s funny I still remember that. I am sure all of the people who have been in my life would be surprised at the number of little details I remember about them. Maybe it’s a bit embarrassing, but I am a collector at heart. I collect things from each person who has passed through my life and I make it part of who I am. I am one big collection of memories and habits of friends, family members, and strangers.

I like thinking about how I am made up of the best parts of people. My personality is my love letter to all the people in my life I have ever cared about. It can be painful too. That’s the whole thing about nostalgia- it’s bittersweet. I hold onto things for too long and I have a hard time letting them go. I find myself often getting lost and spending all my time in the past. I forget how or why they left my life and am filled with this aching for something that doesn’t exist anymore. Sometimes it’s a feeling I felt when I was with them, or maybe it’s wishing I could have one more moment with the version of them I used to know. I can see all the traces of them left behind, the little parts of them sprinkled in who I am, but that’s all that’s left. Those traces are all it’s ever going to be now. We can never truly forget those who made an impact on us, those whom we cherished at one point in our lives. Whether we want to admit it or not- those people forever leave traces of their existence in our hearts. We are all collectors in our own ways. We steal slang from our friends, braid our hair the way our grandmother taught us, or wear old clothes from ex-boyfriends even though it has been years and we have had plenty of others since then. We are all one big collection of everyone we have known and loved and touched.

P.S. In My Place was the original grocery store song.