A Box of 31 Keychains

‘Why do people collect things?’ I typed onto the search bar.

Various answers appear before my eyes.

Desire for knowledge? Definitely not.

Stress relief? Doubtful.

Nostalgia, maybe?

I don’t think I exactly remember why I found myself gravitating towards small metal rings with decorations attached to it, but for some odd reason each one felt like a prized possession.

Fascination? Yes, that. Definitely that.

A feeling of excitement is what I remember from when I opened a return gift from a friend’s birthday party. Inside the multiple layers of pink wrapping paper and scotch tape appeared a keychain with a shiny silver letter “N” attached to it. My first thought was annoyingly practical- how would I even hook this onto a key or a bag zip? My second was the realization that this right here was an object I could call mine. 

Over time, each keyring linked itself to a different memory. A small rubber bunny one that I got out of a winter carnival made its way onto the zip of my backpack in first grade. A yellow elephant with red dots on it, gifted by a pediatrician in third grade for surviving a vaccination successfully. A blue butterfly gifted to me on my ninth birthday, and perhaps the most special of them all, a turtle keyring with my name carved on it. Turtles are famous for good luck. I remember recalling this as I received the keyring, smiling ear to ear. As my interest in keychains grew, so did the collection, until I eventually started keeping them all in a box. Some were reminders of my loved ones’ trips to Dubai, Singapore or Bali- places they’d visited and thought of me. Others were return gifts from birthday parties, or just ones I picked up myself because they looked nice.

For as long as I remember, collecting things had been a very popular activity in my family-whether it’s my father’s stamp collection, my uncle’s postcards or the various coins and currencies collected by my cousin brother. Each had a different meaning and story behind it, but I vividly remember asking my uncle the meaning behind his and he called his postcards a form of souvenir. A souvenir: something that is kept as a reminder. It’s about who or what it points back to.

Maybe our hobbies are like that too, built out of other people’s fingerprints. It was not until the month of April in this year, when I opened my cupboard and took out a dusty box that I realised that time machines exist, and my keychain collection was one of them. 

• life
• memories
• nostalgia