Can’t really remember when exactly I started collecting sugar packets. It must have been sometime around the beginning of high school.. that confusing and magical time when everyone around you is trying to be someone or at least look like someone. While some of my friends were already deep into their napkin collections, swapping floral patterns and delicate prints like treasures, I was that kid who listened to heavy metal and hard rock, dyed a streak of my hair pink using Step juice 😄 and drew band logos all over my notebooks. I still have those drawings tucked away somewhere (perfect for some future blog). They were my first “collection,” I guess. Then, somewhere along the way this sweetness happened. xD Not metaphorically, not musically, I mean literal, tiny packets of sweet white (and brown) sugar. Each one is a memory, a miniature postcard from a place, a person or a moment.
It began innocently enough. Someone gave me one. I think a friend brought it back from a café she’d visited on a summer holiday. It had a gold print and a fancy name I’d never heard of. It looked elegant, way too elegant for something meant to just dissolve in a cup of coffee. So I kept it. Then another friend brought me one. And then another.... Back then, I had more sugar packets gifted to me than I’d actually “collected” myself. Still, I started keeping them. And once you start, you don’t stop. That’s the golden rule of collectors (crazy collector as I am) and possibly addicts. Somewhere between the second and tenth sugar packet, it stopped being a joke and became a habit.
Over the years, these tiny paper packets started mapping out my life. Some came from the seaside when we were in Montenegro, Greece, Egypt. Others from Istanbul or from a small apartment in Kragujevac where we stayed the night to see the last concert of the legendary band SMAK. ❤️ Each packet tells a story, even the ones that don’t have any specific writing on them. I remember exactly where they came from or who gave them to me and what the moment felt like.
At some point, my collection got big enough that I had to organize it. And, in true me fashion, “organize” meant put them into boxes that used to hold mobile phones. You know those sturdy smartphone boxes that feel too nice to throw away? Well, I found them a new purpose. Each box now holds a piece of my sugary treasure.
I don’t know how many I have now. I’ve never counted. It isn’t about quantity anyway. It’s about memory, curiosity and ofc design. Also about finding joy in something small, something no one else notices.
So, that’s my weird little confession: I collect sugar. There, I told ya. But what about you? 😍 Do you have a strange hobby that maybe makes your friends raise an eyebrow? Something small and silly that somehow brings you joy?
The real sweetness of life... it is not in the sugar we stir into our coffee, but in the tiny, unexpected things we decide to keep. ❣️
