The Love for "Vintage:" What's it All About?

I think it's pretty clear from my blog that I have a true love for all things vintage. I love the past, even though those times weren't always the happiest of my life. They were times when I found things I was passionate about, and, to be honest, most of those things still remain passions.


In fact, while J and I were at the flea market this weekend (the perfect place for a vintage-lover), I joked that, if anybody needed a gift for me, they could just buy me what they would have bought me when I was fourteen.


J laughed and said, "That would be silly since you'd probably still have it."


And, he's absolutely right. I have hung on to a lot of things, as much as possible, and I'm kind of curious as to why. Why do some people hang on to the past, literally and figuratively, while others move on and "grow up?"


There are a lot of potential reasons in my own life:


Stunted?


To start with, I developed a severe eating disorder at 14 years old, and "they" say that people who have addictions/other problems often get "stunted" at the age they were when the problem developed. So, part of me thinks that, in some ways, maybe I'm stunted at fourteen.


A Promise I Made to Myself


I still have all of my old journals (planning to do some funny videos in which I read them melodramatically :).


I can read that at 14, 15, 16, and beyond, I was making promises to myself to "not grow up," to not lose the joy of things like coloring or playing with sidewalk chalk. Maybe I just actually meant that promise and stuck to it.


A Lot of Loss


I can also say that I am someone who struggled with a lot of loss in life. My father basically abandoned us when I was fairly young and, before that, we were very unstable, bouncing from house to house.


I have one horrible memory where he needed money and secretly sold a lot of my toys to the neighbors. I remember walking through the neighbor's house one day and saying, "I have that," and then, "That too," and then realizing that these were all my things that had been sold.


There's another memory where my dad sold our home and all the things in it for money at one point. I remember crying and being so upset that the woman who had just bought it all offered me five dollars. I didn't want it. I wanted my home and things back.


So, maybe that's part of it. Maybe it's that I had a lot of loss and, because of that, I try to hang on to all of the things that I can.


Child at Heart <3


Maybe it's a happier reason than all of this. Maybe it's just that I'm a child at heart and like to hang on to the things that remind me of those times.


I don't know what the reason is. Maybe it's all of these things.


But, I'm curious. If you're a "vintage lover," which you probably are if you're on this blog, what do you think makes you the way you are? Why do you love the past and hang onto it?


And, as an added bonus, here are two vintage outfits I wore to work and snapped pictures of in the work bathroom :)