I am a collector. By the light of the moon, as darkness slinks through the night and seeps into every nook and cranny, I search. Looking for the next great addition lurking in the shadows of my past, I wander deep through the rubble and wreckage of my mind. Aberrations of time spent and past long ago stick to my soul like superglue. These gems of what used to be are the treasures I search for in the loneliness of the night, lost within myself. They are my collection.
Those tiny slivers of treasure are the lifeline to the fire burning passionately within me. Coursing through my veins, waves of emotion ripple from my amorous heart. My mind floods with feelings captured in each precious gem, every time I enter that revered place. I hold on tight to all which has paved the path I stumble upon through this journey called life. Those moments, people, places, and melodies stored in my soul are the very foundation of me and everything I stand for, believe in. They are like miniature time capsules, each one containing a snippet of time leading me to this point in life, today. Letting go would only mean losing a part of myself; the glue which holds all the pieces together as one. It is an unbearable notion. One I could never possibly even begin to contemplate. Collecting is simply just an inherent part of my physical nature.
I was born to be a collector and I will die clutching the last and final gem of my story.
This force inside drives me to endlessly seek out clips and reels of the past. Ones which hold the greatest meaning and add significant value to the shaping of my identity or the purpose of my being. It can catapult me into the depths of depression as quick as it can lift me into the clouds of rapture or turn me into a clumsy Weeble- tumbling along in confusion as time replays itself in my dreams. But never falling down, nevertheless. This deep, emotional sensitivity can easily set me off on a wild corkscrew rollercoaster ride, overwhelming my mind with an enigmatic disarray of both the past and present. A tidal wave of emotions compressed by the spiraling ups and downs, rockets me through a pendulum of timelessness, where memories perpetually play on loop; back and forth, back and forth. It is in these moments of temporary insanity that I find wisdom and knowledge greater than I, awakening a self-awareness or enabling a connection to be made which had previously been lost upon my consciousness.
A beautiful mess. A tragic thing of beauty. Bruised, but not beaten. A wild soul with a loving heart, penetrating eyes, and empathic abilities.
I am too much for the average person to handle. My intensity is cumbersome and perplexing to those who aren’t as emotionally charged as me. Who aren’t collectors of nostalgia and keepers of sentimentality. Who don’t hoard fragments of time in their soul or feel their way through life, merely following the intuition of the universe, pulling on them ever so gently. Every person who comes across my path, whether they stay a few days, months, or years, remains steadfast on my heart for eternity. The imprint of our time together is carefully inscribed upon my soul until it eventually compresses under the weight of memories by those who came after. Withstanding the pressures of time, my mind solidifies the most poignant and paramount moments and they become the gems of my cumulation. They have all but forgotten they ever knew this sentient deviant, yet each one has graced me with new paragons to add to my collection.
This is just the way it goes for the collectors of wrinkles in time. We cling to those gracious enough to give us but a moment when our lives intercepted, yet we are never enough for others to want to keep for themselves, for all of time. People move on and leave us to comb through the remnants and scraps of memories remaining for the gems with which to define such a brief juncture between. Gems which to hold in the solitude of the night when the dark threatens to swallow even our souls. Treasure to lock away tightly, where it can outlast the changing of tides and stay protected from the harshness and cruelties of the world around. A collection of chapters to a story forgotten by time itself. A story that needs to be told.
I am a storyteller. I am a collector of paradoxes, paragons, and poignant proceedings. Of love, laughter, and tears. Of bygones past. And, you, are now a piece of my collection. Just a page in a chapter written within a sacred gem stored in the treasure chest of my soul to remain evermore.
By: Kristina Hammer, aka, The Angrivated Mom
The Angrivated Mom 