A big kid or an informed collector?

I'm like most of you, I love hanging out in the toy aisle of stores. I feel at ease there, in my element. I discover all these novelties there that still make me want and I marvel at the ingenuity of manufacturers in this constantly evolving field.

But I also noticed a strange reaction on my part: For most of the brands, I look like a child, with the desire to play, to handle, to bring these toys to life. When I arrive in front of the LEGO department, my gaze changes. I stare at each box with a different feeling, as if I have a different regard for them, as if I suddenly become more observant, more concerned, less playful ...

This change in attitude always surprises me. I like playing with my LEGOs, seeing my son assemble a set, invent a ship, shake a box to gauge the density of its contents ... But I'm also always more careful with my LEGOs than with other toys that populate the rooms of my children.

I place more value on the few plastic bricks or minifigs in my collection than on the youngest's Spider-Man figurine or the older ones' beloved spinning tops. Even they sometimes find it difficult to understand the respect I give to the LEGOs in my collection, because after all, to them, they are just toys like any other. They find it hard to understand why I care about the instruction booklets, or why I take care not to damage a box, especially when throwing away without complexes the packaging of other toys, sometimes much more expensive, after a feverish unpacking on Christmas morning ...

This strange behavior doesn't bother me. It sometimes shocks, all things considered, my entourage, but I always find a valid explanation to justify my relationship with LEGOs. 

Unlike many AFOLs today, I have very few childhood memories involving LEGOs. Even then, this toy was already very expensive, and buying LEGOs was a luxury that not all parents could afford. 

I didn't become AFOL out of nostalgia, I don't have much to say about my childhood with LEGOs, and I didn't feel like I had experienced a Dark Age, that slump in which LEGO fans cheat on their favorite toy.

All of this probably explains my current relationship with LEGOs: A kind of duality between desire to play and passion for collecting. Want to know this pleasant feeling of pain of the fingers which suffer from having handled too many bricks, but also to look for the older sets to complete a collection which already takes up too much space. 

I don't remember playing LEGOs as a kid, but I would remember making up for lost time as an adult.

And you ? what is your relation to lego? Players, collectors, designers, nostalgic, what is the value of these bits of plastic in your eyes?