When do you think you'll quit collecting comics?

I don't know what it is but for me personally, comics give me a unique joy that I find more fun treasure hunting and having items than I almost do reading and learning about my favorite characters. While I still enjoy quite a few comics whenever the mood hits me and still feel a love for the overall comic book experience, I feel a bigger joy out of being the collector than anything else.

When I was younger and I got out of comics, I often felt I had outgrew them. That it had finally happened. I remember when I was a kid and my dad told my mom in front of me, that one day I would outgrow this. It was almost like they would have been worried if I hadn't outgrew it. And I remember thinking at the time....no way! And then years later, I thought I had. I thought I was too old for this silly kid stuff.

Other times I quit because of necessity. I could no longer afford to purchase comics when I had other more pressing needs. I had bigger priorities to concern myself with. And when I walked away from it due to hardship, once again it felt like I had outgrown it.

I've often heard that people regress to things that make them feel young again and maybe that is something comics do. But even though I loved collecting as much as reading when I was younger, the collecting bug has a stronger hold on me now. It just seems like sifting through a box of comics searching for a hidden gem is comforting and relaxing. Almost a getaway from the harder realities of life. A light moment if you will. I think that is why I still find myself all these decades later still looking at them. Somehow when times are tough, sifting through a box of comics seems to make the troubles go away a little bit.

If my maturity determined it, I would have quit comics in my early 20s. If not sooner.

If my priorities in life determined it, I would have quit many times over, including now.

Fact of the matter remains, I personally can't wait to get back to it in some form. And the inner child in me seems to think I'll collect until it becomes a physical hardship or too much of a nuisance to locate comics or afford them. Somehow I keep thinking that my collection today pales in comparison to what it will be 20 - 30 years from now, god willing that I live to see those years. And eventually I will look back on comics I bought off the stands that now are 50 - 60 years old and I still hold the original comic I purchased on that day.

In my dream of dreams, there will one day come a time when I will feel my age is the main problem and life is nearing an end and its time to cash in on as much as I can, do some conventions if they still exist. Make some rounds. Spend a few years letting them go. And hopefully making out with a little wad of cash and saying goodbye to them on cruise with my wife.

Since they've provided me countless years of enjoyment. Hopefully when it ends, it'll buy me one more good time.