Card sleeves and mortality

I've done a lot of card sleeving over the years. Starting with nasty thin sleeves that didn't always fit nicely, progressing in recent years to fancy Gamegenic sleeves, even paying extra for their luxurious matte ones. Not every game I bought got sleeved, but expensive games or games likely to go out of print, any game for which it would be expensive or difficult to replace the cards was seriously considered for sleeving.

But more recently I have begun to resent the inconveniences that come with sleeving: doubling the height of draw piles; low friction making it easy for card piles to slip sideways scattering cards abroad; storage problems fitting the sleeved cards into a box designed for unsleeved; the optical glare, making it difficult to read cards (even those matte ones) in certain lights. And a growing guilt about bringing more plastic into the world.

Also – why do I want my games to last forever?

I'm 67; there are many more gaming years behind me than there are yet to come. How many more times are most games in my collection likely to get played? And why do they need to stay pristine in any case? I bought my copy of 1830 in the late 1980's. It's had a lot of play over the years, and is by now fairly well worn. But the game's shabby state doesn't really matter – no pieces are missing, it's perfectly playable. And the shabbiness is a sign that this game is much loved. It has a history with me, and I value it the more for that. If offered a swap for a brand new copy, I would say no.

So I have begun to unsleeve my games. There are a few exceptions. For example the Action cards in Arcs, which get a hammering many times more severe than the other cards in the game, are staying sleeved. But I'm rediscovering the tactile pleasure of using unsleeved cards, of low-glare text and low-rise draw piles, of the springy feel of good quality cards splayed in my hand. And in the gaming years left to me, I hope I will remember to prioritize play over preservation.