Feeling Good About Nostalgia

I admit that I can be sentimental. And the older I get, the more I find that I miss "the good old days." It's not that I don't appreciate all the technological advances of our modern society because I do and I use many every single day. It's just that I miss simple times. 

There is something about vintage items, especially if they are from my own childhood/young adulthood that brings me a bittersweet joy from the nostalgia.  Take these souvenir cups I saw at the  Antiques Mall the other day...though I did not collect these as a child, I saw them many times as our family trekked across the country on our educational vacations (nope, Disneyland was not included in our vacation list, but I have seen just about every single Native American historical site, every graveyard of significance in the USA and every botanical garden in several countries). 

Back to these souvenir cups...just seeing them brought a flood of memories back to me of various vacations; a trip to the Grand Canyon, a very spiritually moving experience at Canyon de Chelly, memories of my mom as she enjoyed the blooms at The International Peace Garden.  I believe that it is the nostalgia and the enjoyment of easier times that now draws me to try to fill my home, office and RV with vintage goodies.  

The long and short of it is that vintage goods just make me feel good and, though this sounds sappy and a bit odd, they make me happy--even the stuff I wouldn't own in a million years.  

Souvenir china miniatures