collections

I am a good thrower outer, I can be brutally un-sentimental about stuff that others would probably lynch me for throwing out, like photos, sketchbooks, old diaries, first drawings, love letters even my wedding dress. But that is how I have always been I always think if I hold on to old stuff, new things won't have space to come in to my world. This got me thinking about collecting stuff, and defining the word collecting and collections and am I a collector? I always think of collections being hidden away in cabinets or in pristine boxes untouchable objects, hidden from the world. Well outwardly some people would say I am, maybe my collection of old china all mis-matched well used and a bit chipped around the edges, my beloved collection of books, that are shared lovingly battered, torn, full of war wounds, read, loved and some held together by a wing and a prayer. Then there is my plant collecting which is off the scale from shrinking violets to an orchard I have been planting for the last 15 years. I don't define  any of these as collections, as collections for me are about collecting one thing and that particular thing only. So here as I write I start to look around and I am a collector, a collector of Vogue, Feb1987 - June2012 so far, every issue except July 1996 because I lent it to my sister, she read it in the bath and it drowned RIP. This collection is not immaculate, they are torn from, ripped, drawn on. They take up a lot of room. So why do I keep them?