This essay follows how a vinyl collection became a device for ordering my life—structuring time through ritual and anchoring myself across moves and breakups. It describes how a collection gathers biography, value, and community while facilitating curiosity and posing ecological and technological questions.

More than commodities, records are cultural artefacts tied to ritual, care, and aesthetic curation, contrasting with the ephemerality of digital music. Vinyl embodies authenticity, communal rituals, and the thrill of discovery while also confronting ecological concerns.

A collection became a device for anchoring myself across moves and breakups, facilitating curiosity and prompting relations through material rituals in an era of digital overabundance. Precisely because it is not very rational, it may be the most beautiful way to listen to music today.

Keywords: vinyl records, collecting, memory, material culture, authenticity, ritual, mortality, music consumption.