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Rediscovering the Escapism of Collecting Sports Cards
How revisiting an old collection provided the brief escape from the grind of life that we all are searching for
When I was a kid, I had a box that was transparent and made of plastic. Inside this box were hundreds of trading cards of various NFL and NBA players. I would venture to say that as a pre-teen this was my most valued possession. It was this collection that led me to remembering obscure players from the 1990s or to recall where a certain player went to college.
Sadly, when my family relocated overseas when I was 14, that was one of the items that got left behind. The loss of a large collection devastated my 14-year-old mind and like many people in my generation was a moment where I needed to “move on and grow up”. And that is what I proceeded to do, mostly forgetting about the box and all the cards within it.
Recently, however, I have rediscovered this part of my childhood and started collecting basketball cards yet again. As I was sorting them in a card binder this time around, I was reminded how small things can bring us joy and how the static images of professional athletes have reignited the flame that started my love of sports over two decades ago.
