The curse, and blessing, of being eclectic

The hours is late as I pen these words. Dawn has not yet broke as gossamer threads of moonlight bounce off the barren branches of our neighbour's stately tree right outside our front door. There are several posts of time sensitive nature I could be writing at the moment, but I am tired and know that they can all wait until later in the day/week, after I've nabbed a little sleep. Not this one though.

I've been blogging long enough (very nearly seven years on this blog alone, several more if we reach back further in time to sites that no longer exist) to know that sometimes when the spark of inspiration for a strikes one must set about composing immediately or risk being left with the lingering feeling that something great, important or poignant has passed you by. Like realizing you missed seeing someone you cared about for the first time in years by a matter of minutes.

I'm the sort of person who does a great deal of introspective thinking. I analyze my thoughts, my actions, my emotions, my conversations, my passions, my relationships, my dreams, my fears, and just about anything else that I experience. Not obsessively, of course, but certainly with a heavy hand and for the most part, I'm grateful that I operate this way. I think that it stems in part from being a shy, quiet introvert, but know that there are many roots of such and have always found it a comforting trait to possess.

Last year in particular, I thought very frequently about who I am at this present stage in my life, what I like, what defines me, and how I portray myself to the world. I have known since early childhood that my tastes were powerfully eclectic and am generally a-okay with that.

Having a wide array of loves, interests, and (if one can find the time) hobbies keeps life fresh and fun. It means you always have an answer at the ready for what you want to do, buy, see, experience, and even taste next. It ensures I'm never bored, can reply to the question of "what would you like for your birthday/anniversary/Christmas gift" at the speed of light, and has helped me to move with relative ease amongst numerous specific interest groups and subcultures throughout my life.

Yet being eclectic can also have its downsides in a sense. For one, because I have so many likes and interests (some of which I've never even so much as mentioned on this site), it is often easier to stick largely with one and let it define you in so many different ways.

This isn't a negative per se at all, and I don't mean to paint it has such, but rather I wish to speak to the fact that when one is so largely focused on a certain topic, it can, at times, feel like some of the others in your life fall to the wayside or, worse, get left (unintentionally) in the dust all together. It is easy to lose yourself when you are consumed by love, be that for a person, a thing, a timeframe, a place, a way of life or just about anything else.

Or, if not lose entirely, than start to appear rather one-sided. Back in the summer of 2014, on the eve of my birthday, I wrote a post called Thoughts on who I am as I turn 30. This entry has stood out for me ever sense and was a catalyst for further thoughts pertaining to who, in fact, I am, what I love, how the world sees me (online, at least), and some of the way in which I might want to change various things.

The simple truth of the matter is, once you've perceived a certain way - even when that way is wonderfully positive - it can be hard to change or to let other sides of your personality and spectrum of interests shine through, and at times it is even illogical and/or detrimental to do so.



{Being eclectic means that at almost all times, you are only able to show a portion, be it large or small, of who you are and what you love to world. There are perks and downsides to this, as touched on in today's post, but in the end, I'm grateful to have a plethora of passions and enjoy continuing to add new ones to the roster as time goes on. Vintage woman with a hand mirror photo source.}


If I could go back in time to the birth of this blog in April 2009, there are numerous things I would do differently - not the least of which is to include a wider array of my interests and hobbies as part of it. There's nothing to say I still can't, but just as one would be perplexed if they showed up at the Great Wall of China and saw Sphinx of Eiffel Tower themed souvenirs being sold, so too does one have a certain natural path to follow once they've been running a successful blog on a given topic for a long time.

Yet that is easy to say - hindsight and all that jazz. For, eclectic though I may be, I am not the same person I was nearly seven years ago. A staggering number of things, many for the better, have changed in my life since then. I'm older and bolder alike. I've grown in innumerable ways and some of the interests I had then are now just pleasant memories or things that are touched on once in a blue moon. Others are with me still, naturally, and it should go without saying that vintage and all that it encompasses is certainly one of them.

I can't fathom that I would ever stop loving vintage, antiques, history and genealogy. These are embedded passions that have been with me since my earliest days. Yet they are not all of who I am and what I love, and I often struggle with ways to let some of those other parts of my eclectic soul shine through, be it on my blog, in my wardrobe, through my decor choices, and in other areas of my world alike.

Perhaps, to a degree, many of us do. I don't claim to be alone here and am not leading this post in the direction of some great epiphany on the subject, for none has been forthcoming, no matter how much I've thought, reflected and even meditated on the topic.

The focus of this blog is, and always be, vintage, and I love that. However, at the same time, I also sincerely hope that as the years continue to roll on, I can find ways to weave more and more of my interests, my passions, my beliefs, and my soul itself into my posts here, too.

There are, as with so much in this world, pros and cons alike to being eclectic - to loving a great many things with a huge part of your heart/mind/spirit. Ultimately though, I have always felt, at the end of the day, the blessings outweigh the negatives and I think, no, I know, that having such a wide breadth of interests is a huge part of why I've been able to keep this blog going strong for the better part of seven years now.

So if that means certain sides of myself remain under wraps or aren’t overly represented here, ultimately, I have come to realize, so be it. They're still with me, still shaping my life, and who knows, perhaps some of them are even waiting just around the corner to be blogged about in the wee hours of another sleepy, moonlit night.

What being unique means to my life

Every week, nay, nearly every day, I receive emails from companies that are woefully ill suited to my blog (and often personal interests, too) suggesting that I write a promotional post on their behalf for my blog featuring one of more their products or promotions - usually things like trips to countries, wonderful though they may, that I'll likely never step foot in; home appliances I shalln't be buying anytime soon, or flower delivery services that don't even send order to my country. While part of me appreciates, from a business standpoint, why such companies send out these generally entirely boiler plate filled emails, I never act upon them.

Their impersonal requests, sent to hundreds, if not thousands of folks on all rungs of the blogger popularity ladder do to not speak to me. They don't stir my heart, cause me to stop in my tracks and get lost in a thunder storm of thoughts. They are not who I am and what my blog is about. Yet for every rule there is an exception and when said exception comes delivered with your name and a friendly note from someone you've already had pleasant correspondence with, that feeling shifts radically.

Earlier this week I received just such a (positive) email from the fine folks at Unique Vintage. The message, simple, polite, and earnest, merely wondered if I'd be interested in taking part in their recently launched #iamunique campaign which encourages people from around the world to use that hashtag for their photos, tweets, posts, what have you, anytime they want to convey the message that they are indeed unique.

{A handful of the awesome people that Unique Vintage has highlighted as part of their inspiring #Iamunique campaign.}

We've all heard the jaded axiom before: "You're unique, just like everyone else" or some variation (often with the world special used in lien of unique) before. And it's precisely that, an apathetic line delivered, more often than not with an air of smugness and and thumbing of the nose towards the notion that each of us is unique.

Sad really, because we are. Even those who, for better or worse, spend much of their time and energy emulating others are unique beings. No two people, not even identical twins are every truly, exactly the same.

It is our our differences, our similarities, and yes, even our specialties that make us unique. You could quickly trust your hand up in the air say, but wait, aren't they just using the word unique because it's in the name of their company. And if you do, my answer would be a kindly delivered, "So what?". If, as Marshall McLuhan wrote back in the 1960s, the medium is the message, than it's high time that the media of hashtags and social (fittingly) media itself, a rather cloistered and at times carbon copied segment of modern society, embraced and celebrated the concept of what being unique really means.

After all, I thought to myself, as I read what this campaign is aiming to do and how the word unique tied into Unique Vintage's very moniker, I too took a word from one part of my world and applied it to another when naming my blog.

Long time readers who have been with me for many a year now, bare with, as I know you've heard this tale before (I promise you though, you haven’t heard it quite like it). It warrants telling again, for it is part of what makes me and my very blog itself unique.

You see, once a while back, nearly six years ago to be precise, I was in my mid-twenties and incredibly ill. I mean, scary, kiss-the-ground-each-morning-because-you-woke-up ill. I'd already been a multiple chronic illness fighter for a few years and at that time I was was going through one of the worst spells of my life on the health front. It lasted for years. I was (physical) weak and incredibly exhausted. Pain alone would have been a welcome respite from the nightmarish agony I was living. Tears took more energy then I could muster most days. But I didn't feel sorry for myself or bemoan my lot in life - for I still had life and hope and the perpetually present thought that I was more than just the sum of my medical problems.

I began to focus, if only in my mind, on those very things. The elements that made me whole and interesting. Those that had walked with me since my earliest memories and others that hopped on an open box car somewhere along the way in this wild journey we call existence.

There was my immeasurable passion for animals. The way I could scent the world with the fragrance of vanilla tobacco smoke and never tire of it (I don't, and have never, smoked, I just madly adore that scent). There were the countless books, lapped up with more gusto than a kitten going at a saucer of milk. There was my camera, trusty companion, sometimes source of income, silent witness to things far too easily forgotten, buried beneath the weight of the daily grind.

There was the reams of research done in the name of my family's genealogy. Always searching, always wanting to know and understand more. To see not only branches but the very roots of my kin's own tree. There were dolls, some new, some old, and a few cherished childhood mementos of various sorts. Letters received and drafts waiting to be sent, all in cursive - the product of a refusal to extinguish an age old art.

In the closet of my mind's eye hung fashions both real and imagined, lingering alongside roses and honeysuckle and wisteria from backyard gardens long moved on from. A million memories like the grains of sands that clung to my young legs on the beaches - second homes, really - of my youth.

There were the scars from battles won and surrenders survived. Literal and metaphorical. Notebook upon notebook of poetry, often my one and only saving grace. There were songs, ballads from kindred spirits and rebel wordsmiths that highlighted and shadowed recollections more vividly than light ever could.

Faces and places, loves and hates. Failures and successes, both spectacular, both powerful, both invaluable in shaping my morals, my ethics, my beliefs, my politics, my compassion. Notes of romance from my husband, his gentle voice, sagely wisdom, twinkling eyes.

Losses and gains, and a hundred million pains and everything and nothing that made me who I was. That made me unique.

I turned to one interest, one passion that had shone like a lighthouse beckon since before I could even read the printed word on my own: history, and by extension this word and world we call vintage.

It was my in my closet, on my bookshelves. It woke me up to hand fistfuls of coins to strangers on sleepy, sun-kissed Saturday mornings. It gave me my first job and many along the road between then and now. It was what made me ask follow up questions to elderly people's stories about their early days. Humbled me in my tracks. Shone and gave and invited me to always return, no matter what.

It knew me as well, perhaps better even, than I knew myself, for it had seen all who came before me and will encompass all who follow. The words that appeared to me next, the very name I bestowed upon this blog - and myself from that point onward - were "chronically vintage".

This love, the beautiful, amazing, endless bank of knowledge was not a negative form of the word chronically, as it is so often implied or needed to be used (as in the case of ongoing health problems). It was a positive. An all encompassing, fantastical, joyful experience that comes from being so very blessed as to be tapped by the universe to preserve and celebrate that past each and every day.

In the midst of a nightmare, I carved out a tiny niche of beauty. My corner of the web, yes, but also a reclaiming of the fact that I was so very, very much more than my medical situation. I was unique, but at the same time united with others in a common interest, a shared adoration.

We are each as unique as our finger prints, our DNA, our souls - and yes, even our blogs and social media statements. That, my sweet dears, is part of the message behind Unique Vintage's campaign and why, unlike all those other emails, this one set my fingers ablaze and spurred today’s post to life. Not entirely unlike when my blog itself came into being late one April evening in 2009.

{#iamunique and wonderful, flawed and human, passionate and perpetually optimistic, and I wouldn't have it any other way.}

Here is to being unique. To walking proud and standing up for your right to be an individual. Brave, elegant, raw, gorgeous, troubled, sweet, hopeful, brilliant, and yes, even stylish. No matter what, no matter where, no matter the cards that life has dealt you. For in being unique, we triumph and we find the strength by which to pick ourselves up when the chips are down and the promise of tomorrow isn't always a given.

#Iamunique, and so too, thank the universe, are each and every one of of you. This is my story. What's yours?

Learning to delight in opening up about myself

The Roman philosopher and statesman Seneca once said, "There is no delight in owning anything unshared". Throughout the course of 2013, this line and the truth behind it has floated into my mind often.

At the end of last December, three days shy of a full year ago, I chatted about how instead of goals for the coming year, I was planning to try and live by a set of adjectives instead. As January rolled on however, I began to realize that on top of those adjectives, I wanted to strive toward a certain verb as well: share.

In this case though, I'm not talking so much about actually physically dividing up anything I own, instead the type of sharing that I've been trying to do is to open up about certain areas of my life and who I am with all of you here.

I am the first to admit that I've never been terribly good at sharing in this regard. I know perfectly well that this largely stems from the fact that growing up, there was a lot about my family that I was either told to point blank, or opted to of my own free will, hide from those around me. Secrets, shames, and skeletons aplenty sat like the weight of the world on my young shoulders.

As I grew up, I then hide a lot about the horrible relationship (touched upon in this post) that I was involved with in my early and mid teen years. Very shortly after that period in my life, I became severely chronically ill with a multitude of - by their very nature - private medical conditions (though I have spoken at various times and in various places at length about some of my health issues), which one cannot help but desire to keep under wraps and to themselves as much as possible a lot of the time.

I don't see myself as a victim however of any of these things, and have striven to put either put them behind me or to face them head on and survive as best I can in spite of them. Add to this mix the fact that I am, and have always been, an incredibly shy and private person, and you can see why I've never been accused by anyone of over sharing.

That said, I believe that it can be good for the mind, body and soul to share. There's a fine line between being private and keeping tight lipped about things that 99.9% of the rest of the population would have no qualms talking about.

I was raised in a house where one didn't talk publicly about private things or really even about most anything else that happened to us, where we were often told to never boast or brag or rarely even discuss our accomplishments, and so I grew up keeping things - even wonderful things that I so dearly wanted to share with others - to myself most of the time. Old habits die very hard, and to this day, I still get nervous even just posting a photo of some little treat I bought myself on Instagram, for example. Part of my brain says that I shouldn't, that I must keep every action to myself. This is absurd quite frankly though, and I know it well.

I am not that little girl any more, not by a long shot. I have grown and matured, changed and let ago of lot of the fears that governed my upbringing in the time since then. I will always work at being a more open person, and to that extent have been trying to share more about myself here on my this year (and in the final days of 2012; for example, in the my post about 12 things that I did to make my life better in 2012). This year, for example, you've been here with me as I talked about my years of hair loss, revealed my wig, joined Facebook, hopped on the Instagram bandwagon, shared some of my poetry, and was humbled beyond words by an unexpected gift that helped me to better view my own beauty, as well as a very personal reflection on seeing Calgary again.

{This year, and from now on, I’ll making a conscious effort to reach out and share more about myself with those around me. It’s high time I stopped being afraid of letting the world see who I am, what I love, my thoughts, and my dreams. Image source.}

It (humbly) took courage on my part to talk about all of these things, and I'm truly glad that I was able to muster the amount required to discuss all of these things in a public setting. With each previously unknown (or nearly unknown) side of myself that I've shared with you, I feel like I've grown and also gotten to know many of you better through the experiences you've shared with me in your comments here and various social media sites.

I never set out to be, and no longer have a desire to be, a completely closed book. I know that I'll always be a fairly private person, and that's totally okay, but sometimes it's wonderful, healthy, helpful, and exciting to share, whether we're talking about something major like needing to wear a wig full time or something as seemingly everyday as a new bottle of nail polish that I bought.

I've been writing this blog for over four and a half years now, and in that time I have certainly shared many things about myself, my life, my thoughts and my experiences with all of you, but I want to share more and to feel a greater degree of confidence (in myself) when I do.

The support and encouragement that has come in from all of you when I have posted intimate things here, especially this year, has truly bolstered my confidence and helped me to find a greater sense of inner peace about sharing, and I really want that to continue throughout this year and for the rest of my life.

Our dear old friend Seneca may have been talking more about possessions and wealth when he said what he did all those years ago, but I like to believe that the same sentiment can be extended to life itself. After all, where is the joy in the very life that we live each day if it is not shared, at least in part, with those we love and choice to surround ourselves with?