by SavMousehammer » Tue Oct 22, 2019 03:34 pm
Hello, Everyone.
I had a bit of a Moist moment a couple of nights ago, and I'd like to come back into the In now please.....
I was late to the party when I discovered the existence of the stamps about a decade ago, but I quickly became a passionate flatelist, and avid lurker and sometimes poster on here.
Thanks to the amazing people on here, and in The AMPO Wincanton Branch, I built a collection I was very happy with; mostly commons admittedly but the odd sport and "special" that I was proud of. I even was mentioned in the Stanley Howler Journal a couple of times - a valuable claim to fame!
It was January 2016 and I was waiting for the delivery of some LBE’s to allow me to complete a large (for me) 60 x GCTS order when the black clouds descended. The mental fallout from a then recent horrendous emotional trauma took over me and I gave up pretty much everything. I put the albums and stockbooks, mounts and all the other paraphernalia in boxes and basically hid, mostly from myself.
Well as we all know the sun keeps on spinning around us, the procrastinators keep on turning, Time strides on with healing, and we all improve with age………
The sky cleared.
Fast forward to this summer.
The black clouds returned, but this time they were physical. And bad.
I am now mostly the way through a very aggressive treatment program which is getting very painful and brutal, hence why I was awake at 0130 Monday morning having my Moist moment……..
I was staring into the darkness, worrying and terrified of the oncoming treatment and its side effects, fretting over the future, my mind just wandering.
I heard a noise. From the wardrobe at the end of the bed. A normal house creaking middle of the night noise, but like everything else the noise just kept preying on my mind. I knew the noise came from where my old stamp stockbooks and albums were. Eventually the insomnia got the better of me and I dug into the back of the wardrobe and got the stamps out.
So there I was, middle of the night, leafing through the loose pages of the albums I had made and the stockbooks with assorted jumbles of spares and rows of wonderfully made stamps staring at me. I remembered the fun of opening the LBE’s, squinting as each stamp came out, checking for sports or specials and examining each newly released stamp. I was surprised that it had been less than 4 years since I had stopped; in my mind, it had been 6.
I think one of the reasons for collecting is not just the aspect of the past i.e. “I have collected something” but the future aspect - the ability to treasure and look at a collection in the future. And I think this is where the stamps started talking. Well, it was probably the painkillers and lack of sleep…..
The stamps needed a lot of work, there was so much to catch up with, so much I had missed.
But…
Thanks to modern medicine I have been given an incredible gift of time. We, the stamps and I, spoke at the same time “We can do this” and in that moment, “this” wasn’t just the stamps but all the treatment and pain I still have to go through, and that “we” meant that wouldn’t be alone. There was a light and a road to travel.
The first thing I did when I got up was order some LBE’s. I also gave the postman a good hard stare as he passed, just to get back into the swing of things. I’m not saying the stamps saved my life, but they have helped me.
I can't wait to get started again.
I’d like to give a huge thanks, to all involved in Wincanton and to all involved on here. Thank you for still being here, I missed you all more than I realised.
xx
Of course I can keep a secret, it's the people that I tell that let me down so bad.