I’m Jewel, and I collect My Little Ponies

MBJ collection

In my everyday life, I am a college graduate with a bachelor’s degree in Film and Video, a voiceover artist, a freelance video editor, and animal rescue volunteer. But you’re not here to read about that kind of stuff, are you?

I have been collecting ponies for as long as I can remember, since the first Cotton Candy which was given to me before I could even talk. After a brief hiatus (in which I was “too old” for ponies–ha!) and a collecting renaissance through the G2 line, I joined the My Little Pony online communities when I was a young teenager. I have now been active in the community in general for almost 20 years. During that time, my collection has grown from a humble 45 to around 3,000 individual ponies from all over the world, some of them truly one-of-a-kind treasures!

You may ask yourself, how does one find themselves with THAT many ponies? How does a person become so involved in such an obscure hobby?

The answer is a little complicated.

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When I was a teen, and my life was almost ready to truly begin, I became seriously ill from complications from a common flu virus. The long and short of it is: my body never truly recovered, and my autonomic nervous system became permanently damaged as a result. As the months, and then years, went by and reality set in that the rest of my life would be that of a disabled person, I did what many people do in the face of difficult news: I turned to something that had always made me happy, something that reminded me of my life before chronic illness. Something I could do despite my conditions.

And so here I am, a pony collector who happened to have found her “tribe” among fellow collectors. This road would have been a much lonelier and exponentially more one without the constant love and support of the amazing people I’ve met through this hobby.

Over the years, I became an active participant in many corners of the pony collecting community:

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Collecting ponies has opened up a crazy, quirky, incredible world to me, both in my own experiences and the strong, lasting friendships I have made with fellow collectors. In attending the national and international conventions, I have seen parts of the US that I never would have otherwise. It’s a unique little corner of the collecting hobby with memories I will cherish forever.

If I could tell you anything, it would be this: Life is short. Be you, and do what makes you happy.

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