I Only Want One Watch: A Fantasy In the Making

So, inspired most recently by this post from @MarkD67 

https://www.watchcrunch.com/MarkD67/posts/how-many-is-too-many-2-25176

and the many thoughtful responses, I thought I'd parse out my own thoughts about numbers.  Quirky and very possibly dull--apologies in advance.  But I do find that thinking aloud on WC is really helpful to me as I navigate our strange addiction.

When I was young, a man who used to work for my family used to say, about his limited wardrobe, "I only have one body, and I can only wear one shirt at a time.  So why have so many?"  Even as a young child, I found this philosophy fascinating.  It was a conundrum I felt observing my very-many family, where I was already gaining the nicknames "the little monk" and "the little Quaker."  Which were said only half-kindly. 

But, slightly ironically, when I became an early-middle-aged adult and had money, I began to collect vintage designer and couture clothing.  Collect, as in plan and research and covet and buy and then conserve/preserve.  And yes, wear.  And the same issues came up in that realm that we talk about here. 

There can be a crossover point, where something pleasurable can shift to something less-than.  For me with my Vintage (that's the clothing shorthand, which somehow then means that every other collectible has to become Vintage-Something), first the coveting and conserving became less-than pleasurable over time.  So many gnawing wants, which never seemed to abate even when I had the next perfect item in my hands or on my back.  So many worries about their state of being, almost especially when they sat unused waiting for their turn.

And that sense, of so many choices for the day, and then so many more the next day and the next, became tiring for me. I began to long for something simpler.  And this, in turn, made the research less compelling, and the coveting less intense. 

In short, I guess that my life had been wholly shaped around this pursuit, and I wanted it to be shaped differently. 

(It's something of the shift that @mjosamannen wrote about so well this past week https://www.watchcrunch.com/mjosamannen/posts/what-i-aspire-to-be-24248  

With thanks to @DeeperBlue for linking to this in the latest Bites:  https://www.watchcrunch.com/Deeperblue/posts/bites-burnout-blowtorches-and-the-secret-lives-of-crunchers-24955 )

So slowly, I began to sell and donate my pretty damn nice collection, and eventually I began to dress in a daily uniform, the details of which I won't bore you with except to say that I returned to my roots and basically look like Holden Caulfield, in the body of a petite 62 yo woman. 

And I've never looked back, although the joy of Vintage remains, and I am always happy to peruse sites whether commercial or historical; go to museums/costume institutes, etc.  But the thing that makes me happiest is no longer owning these lovelies, and no longer making choices when I get up in the morning.

Which brings me finally, if you have stuck this out, to watches.  Because for me, this journey is the same, and I am hoping that it will in fact have the same ending.  I love my watches, and I am not done yet with exploring all that I covet and am curious about.  I keep buying and purging--something I did with Vintage as well over that period--and I have plenty of room in the box for more right now.  And I DO intend to fill those cushions.

But I also remember the day when one had One's Watch, sitting faithfully on the bedside to be put on with no thought or choice, with nothing but a deep sense of camaraderie.  It was like putting on a second skin, something my daily uniform provides too.  Yes, it was the GADA (ok, there might be dress watch lurking for occasional wear), but it wasn't even named that, since there was no thought that there could be, really a not-GADA.

So I do aspire to one watch, and the simplicity of that and the deep relationship that we will have (no, I do not have a deep relationship with, say, my Topsiders.  That's why watches are better!).  But that will come, if it does, through the same long foray and discovery of myself and these miraculous little machines.  

In the meantime, the hunt is one, but the fantasy remains.