Unique and Uniquely Broken....

            Do you ever feel like you were born in the wrong time? I love old things. Vintage table cloths, old architecture, old tea pots. I prefer vinyl records over cds. I prefer old blues, old jazz, old swing music. I like the new stuff too, but I always go back to Billie Holiday, Perry Como, and good ole' Frank. When I was kid, I listened to the oldies channel over the pop music my friends listened too. It is how I got a love for Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, and Aretha Franklin.  In my teens, I was rocking out to The Glenn Miller Band and big band swing music. I love vintage clothes and vintage furniture. Antiques make me extremely happy. Nothing bums me out more than going into an old house that someone has stripped all of the original character out of and made it "modern"....shudder. I mean, some things have to be modernized but leave the molding alone!

Right now, I am obsessed with old feed sacks. They are just so freaking neat. I also have an issue with old signs. I have a whole wall of them in my living room. My husband thinks I have enough, but just like books, I am not sure you can ever have too many. Of course, that could be my slight hoarding tendency trying to come out. I have to be careful or I could totally end up with a basement full of cheap vintage signs and old flour sacks....

I also love old typewriters, old radios, old cameras...ect. I just tend to feel like I was born in the wrong time. Or maybe, I am just weird. At this point, I can't tell the difference anymore. All I know is, I always prefer something old over something new. Like my great grandmother's chipped fruit bowl...I love that damn thing and it isn't worth anything. Except that it was hers and it was special to her because she grew up in the Great Depression and she got it around the time my grandmother was born. It is my most prized piece of china. It is my only piece of china but even if I got the most expensive china in the world, I would still only love this one chipped bowl. I love the vintage tea pots my grandmother gave me. They have lost all of their silver plating. One was from an old hotel in Texas that was given to her by one of her grandmother in law's husbands. Or the other tea pot that was made in the 1800's but has a huge dent in it, is no longer shiny and the lid hinge is completely broken so the lid falls off if you even breath while looking at it. They are worthless monetarily and yet they mean so much to me.


I love old, antique and vintage things so much that even my wedding ring is over a hundred years old. I picked it out myself thirteen years ago because it was unique, hand tooled, lovingly crafted for someone, and old.

 Maybe, I like old things because they are no longer run of the mill, cookie cutter objects. They have a history. I don't want new hardwood floors, I want hardwood that has been worn down for decades by the feet of living, breathing, loving, happily families. I don't want new furniture in my dining room. I want the table that has little scratches where the silver wear was placed for a century. I don't want the things that have no story. I want to add my stories to the things that already have one. I am fascinated by everyday objects that have little mars and scratches and marks from owners past that are a testament of their life experiences. A sign that they were here. I love the history of it all.

Obviously, some things have to be bought new but whenever possible I always go for the old. The down trodden. The underdog. The flawed and less desired because it is not perfect. I go for the tarnished tea pot, the well worn flour sack, the broken typewriter, the rusty sign and I utilize them to been seen in my home. They are my little artifacts of history. Worth nothing to most but so much to me because at one time they meant everything to someone else.... Maybe I like them because I see myself in each dented and cracked object...flawed, sometimes overlooked, bizarre, unique, broken, rusted, and well worn. Maybe these things bring me comfort because I feel we share a sameness. Our value is hidden but still exists just waiting for the right person to recognize it, not only in my little artifacts but in themselves as well. Maybe I like them because they are like tiny mirrors of what I see in myself. Maybe a bit dinged up but still beautiful, still interesting, still worthy of being seen and loved. I like them because they remind me that we are all unique and yet uniquely broken....and we all should be treasured.

Neurotic Nelly