Collectibles

Many of the things I've managed to collect over the years are office supplies. I don't know why, but for whatever reason I've always loved office supplies. When I was younger and when my dad took me to work with him, he would let me take a pen or two home. Ever since, I've loved to collect different pens and pencils. There are just so many different styles and colors! And you have to try them all to know which one is perfect. When I was in college and grad school I would take notes or make vocabulary lists in different colors. Yes, I would color code my notes, because I'm just that crazy. But I'm also a visual learner, I suppose, and I would always associate certain words or notes with colors and somehow that helped me to remember things. So, I've collected quite a variety of pens from my school days, but then I managed to collect more when I started working. Why wouldn't I take every single style and color of pen from the supply closet when it's all free? And when given the opportunity to order them from a supply catalog, oh my God, hold me back!

Needless to say, I've manged to amass a lot of pens. The amount I have is a little crazy, even by my standards. Now that I'm no longer in school and not taking notes every day or doing homework every night, I don't go through pens as much as I used to. Because I write so little, one pen can last forever. So, given my latest quest to minimize my worldly possessions, this afternoon I went through all my office supplies in a painful effort to get rid of half of what I own. Let's face it, I don't own anything fancy. It's not like I'm holding on to them because there is 14k gold inlaid into the barrel. And it's not like I write with a fountain pen every day. These are just your basic ink pens or ballpoints. Parting with these pens might have been a little painful, but it wasn't as devastating or tragic as I thought it would be. So now I can proudly take all of the pens I've given up and put them in the supply closet at work to share with my co-workers.

Yes, I'm this crazy...