So much looks nicer in retrospect. I think back to when I bought that old bag and remember it as an innocent time: social media wasn’t yet the monster it has quickly become, politics seemed less divisive, and nobody was threatening us with the return of low-rise jeans.
My memory fails to acknowledge that the world was on the brink of a devastating financial crisis, that we were paranoid about terrorism at every turn, that the music was garbage, and that your friends were actively encouraged to rank your importance on a public platform.
Under the rosy glasses of nostalgia, everything is lovely. When I shrug into a mod dress, when I swing a vintage bag over my shoulder, when I plonk into my hairdresser’s chair and tell her I want her to turn me into Sharon Tate, reality is irrelevant.
It’s golden-age thinking, or the belief that life was better way back when. Acknowledging that until incredibly recently, life was infinitely more challenging for the vast majority of demographics – well, that’s no fun.
I don’t slip into a pair of corduroys to invent memories of life during the Red Scare; I don’t finger-wave my hair and twirl around in a (replica) flapper dress to lament life under prohibition. It’s a moment of make-believe, reserved just for daydreamer adults. It’s a fantasy, a passing wish to be transported through the years and back to a moment when all the little dissatisfactions and challenges of real life didn’t exist yet.
Borrowing from the past and sprinkling it through the future; a touch of magic in an otherwise mundane and oppressively modern day. Sure, to me, that old handbag is a totem of hard work and frivolous spending – but to someone else, to its new owner, it’s a time machine. It’s hard to put a price on that.
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