Musings on my accumulation of things

Everyone collects something at some point in their life. Clothes, tshirts from vacations spots, dolls, thimbles, pins...something.
Over the years collections of mine have come and passed:
- Cat figurines (I was obsessed with getting a cat from ages 4 to 11. But my dad was allergic so my relatives bought me posters and stuffed animals and stuff instead).
- Beanie babies (It was the 90s).
- Dolls.

I don't collect those things anymore, but I still have some of them. A few dolls are still out, but most of them are packed in their boxes in the attic. The beanie babies are in giant ziploc bags up there too. Some of the cats are on my bookcase. I've just outgrown those collections I guess (Not that I'm a grown-up. I don't think I'll ever be entirely a grown-up. Plus I still have way too many toys).

Now it seems I collect:
Books.
Vinylmations (Disney. See previous posts or Google it or something).
Dvds.
Family photos.
Movie action figures (Pirates, Star Wars, and Star Trek mostly).

My mom collects mice. We have mouse figurines of all sizes all over the place. We have music boxes and ornaments. We have Mickey Mouse items for the kitchen and the guest bathroom used to be Mickey themed. I've taken to rotating the collection based on the season. I put the ones making a snowbunny on the sofa table during winter, then in the summer swap it out for the ones in a sand bucket. Fall gets the one in a pumpkin and the one picking apples, and so on.

So I was thinking, when I move out into my own place (if I ever get a freaking job related to my degree), how will I display the oddities I've collected over the years without my place looking like it belongs to Mr. James B.W. Bevis sans the taxidermy?

Luckily, books and movies can be given simple shelves or cabinets or even a little "library" in a study or something. Pretty easy there.

Family photos are also pretty easy I suppose. Frames can be hung on walls or on a mantle or put on end tables (or any spare bit of bookshelf or desk). And photo albums and scrapbooks can fall into the "books" category.

So that leaves my strange and varying collection of collectibles. I guess action figures and Vinylmations can get little display shelves like my mom's mice. The figurines and dolls I've kept can be strategically placed as decor...maybe in a guest room or something. Everyone has knick-knacks (which reminds me of a billboard for a store I once saw called St Nick Knacks...it was a Christmas store! Genius! But I digress) so it wouldn't be weird to have them about. Plus a lot of my little things can be "seasonal" decor depending on what holiday is coming up.

Maybe some of the toys I've saved will stay at my parents' house. Perhaps someday my kids or some nieces and nephews (if my only sister ever changes her mind and decides she would not, in fact, "irreversably screw up a kid") to play with when they visit. I remember playing with my much older cousins Barbies when I visited my aunt and uncle. And playing with my aunt's old toys from the 70s when I went to my mom's parents'. My dad's parents' had a few things like that, but they didn't have any daughters so it was limited (also Grandma gave us things like jars of pennies or buttons to play with. We just sorted or counted them. I'm surprised how long a jar of buttons could entertain us. It's called "imagination", kids. But again, I digress).

I think I like the idea of tasteful wall display cabinets for some of my things. My boyfriend likes and collects Star Wars things also so if I ever live with him there will be no conflict with that. Then I can have spots for my Disney and OSU stuff and HE can have spots for all his Lord of the Rings stuff (God damn, typing that paragraph made me realize how nerdy we are. We belong together. For example, my Star Trek wall clock placement would be up for debate not because he doesn't like Star Trek, but because of the TICKING NOISE it makes).

I always feel like I have too much stuff. So I go through my old clothes and dig through stuff to get rid of the excess. Then I realize, a lot of the excess is because I have stuff that I had for an apartment (at school) that I'm storing. I have extra rugs and lamps and shelves and posters and bedding and curtains. Luckily my sister can use some of that, but we don't always have the same taste so she buys her own stuff too.

My conclusion is that my main problem is not that I'm a mild hoarder, but that I've outgrown having "my room". Kids only need their room. They have their bed, their clothes and their toys. That is all kids have in the world. College age kids and "twenty-somethings" stuck with their parents have furniture and two decades worth of stuff. We've lived away from home and bought stuff for ourselves also. We need our own space.

The point of this whole ramble is that I need to move out. Someone HIRE ME.