When I was a young girl, I collected post cards. Old ones mostly. It started when I came across a few old ones at my Nanny’s house. She let me have them and, from there, my collection grew.

There were lots of soppy old post cards. They must have been used for courting or keeping love alive. Full of romantic sentiments and wreathed in ribbons and flowers and birds. There were lots of birds.

There were several old-fashioned tourism post cards, too. One of Niagara Falls, I remember. Others of “Southern belles” who worked as window dressing and guides at Southern plantations. Beautiful young ladies clad in elaborate hoop skirt dresses in multiple colors, with perfectly coiffed hair. Usually blond.

Before I was a teenager, my post card collection disappeared in one move or the other. I miss it. It had grown to be about 6 inches thick with an elastic band wrapped around it. That’s a lot of post cards. I think it would be fun to look at them again and ponder the different eras that generated them.

Humans are great collectors. There is something pleasing and sometimes instructive about the order of collections. I think about butterfly and other bug collections we see in museums or old books. Or china collections, like a certain pattern we favor or maybe a variety of tea cups we have accumulated.

Collecting has something to do with our values and what matters to us. My Dad was famously unsentimental about holding on to anything. From about the age of 11, I had started collecting flotsam and jetsam from my life in a wallpaper book.

Wallpaper used to be sold from huge bound pattern books that most paint stores carried. There were large desks set up at the end of paint aisles where you could thumb through them and choose what you wanted.

Paint stores would often lend out the pattern books so you could take them home to check how the pattern would look in your home. When the patterns were discontinued and no longer available, the books became redundant. Paint stores were happy to give them away.

So one of these discards became my precious possession. The thing was about four feet by four feet and awkward to carry. It had a thick plastic carrying handle at the spine. For several years, I put all the precious accumulated things of childhood in that book.

Report cards. Birthday cards from relatives. Ticket stubs. Artwork I wanted to hold on to. Pictures of friends, family and events of interest in my life. Newspaper articles about an event I’d attended or that interested me.

It is still painful to remember the circumstances of its demise. Dad had moved from an apartment to his “forever” home while I was away at college. In the course of the move, my wallpaper book full of childish memorabilia was garbaged. It had been in the closet of the bedroom where I stayed when I came to visit.

I heard Dad report on its fate with a mixture of numbness, horror and despair. “What was done was done.” No histrionics or tantrum would have effected its return. I remember interpreting Dad’s act as a discard of me, or at least what mattered to me. It was a lifelong pattern. As many men of his era did, my interests were of little import compared to his pursuits. I loved my Dad, but remember telling a high school teacher: “I don’t think he is very good for me.”

His carelessness about taking care of things that mattered to me was a more general disregard for me personally and my pursuits. I expect it was projection. Dad had little self-regard so how was he going to extend that to his issue. It took years to develop my own internal cheerleader to sustain a belief and commitment to things in life that were of value and interest to me.

I have only a few, small collections now. A china pattern called Blue Eva Opulent by 555 Fifth Avenue. The pattern is discontinued so the pieces I have and ones that come up at auction are rare. I collect white china pitchers, too. This was a nod to my Aunt Anne who started me with my first one when I was a teenager. I have several ornate porcelain teacups that I keep simply because they are so fancy-schmancy.

And rocks. I love rocks. Pretty, little ones mostly that you might find on a beach walk or in a riverbed. I have bought special rocks in tourist and science shops just because they were beautiful and interesting. Hematite is a good example. If you’ve ever come across this shiny onyx black magnetic rock in your travels, you may understand the appeal.

I don’t know what that little blip of excitement is when you find something new to add to your collection. Perhaps it is because you know the pieces are rare and beautiful and pleasant to look at and handle. It is a peculiar vanity. These collections will be dispersed when I am no longer here to manage them.

But like other favorite pursuits on this planet, they are an enjoyable distraction and occasional preoccupation. They are not vital or necessary in the grand scheme of things by any means.

Similar to many human pursuits, building collections can bring life joy and just be a personal bright spot. For that reason alone,