Toys in Babeland
Feb. 27th, 2013 02:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
babeinthewoodsI was talking last night with TheSugaryOne. One of our usual conversations where we laugh and laugh and say things that were quite bemusing to both of us.
I told her that I had to write this. I told her that this title had been rattling around in my head for a long time but that I'd never taken the time to flesh it out into reality.
Truthfully, I'd been thinking the title for a long time, but had no idea what words to put with it. Suddenly as I was talking, it came to me with a thud and a crash. I had to put hard, hot pink, acrylic nails to keyboard and set it down in stark black on white text:
Every once in a while, when my TOU violations were but itty-bitty versions of the full-sized adolescent humans they are today, I'd go into their rooms and examine the toyboxes.
Just me, a garbage bag and a sense of determination that anything not useful would be thrown out.
Broken toys, pieces of toys with no main parts, sharp edges, jammed buttons and nutella in the gears were all good reasons to throw away crap that was taking up space in their lives without enriching them.
I'd clean out the clutter of their physical space, getting rid of everything that I could tell they couldn't put to good use, wouldn't put to any use or that could harm them. Things they'd outgrown was a prime reason to throw something away.
"You're too old to play with this, Curdleator."
"Sorry, BooBerry, you'll hurt yourself if you keep this around."
I was merciless. If it wasn't necessary, it didn't need to take up space.
Oh, sure...there were some things that were sacred cows. Some things that had to remain, no matter how old and decrepit they became.
TheCurdleator had a teddy bear that I'd passed on to him the day he was born...that had been given to me the day I was born. Theodore was absolutely beyond reproach no matter how nasty he looked.
TheBoo was the proud owner of a doll my parents had had made for me when I was a girl...Violet had a get out of jail free card, too...no matter how tattered and torn she became.
Some things you keep because they have meaning. The rest...it can go.
Oddly, though, despite the fact that I'm ruthless and beyond cruel with refusing to hold on to physical mementos, I'm guilty of never-ever-ever-ever-EVER cleaning out my emotional toybox.
Of never clearing out my mental deadwood.
Of letting my broken toys just hang out there, cluttering up my mental toybox so that I can't put anything else in there.
I steeled myself today.
I breathed deeply.
I exhaled deeply.
In with the butterflies and out with the bees.
I blew a thick layer of dust off the lid of that toybox today and then opened it up.
Oh no. They were all in there. Crammed in together, cheek to jowl, all the broken toys I'd thrown away after they had hurt me.
They were exactly the way I'd left them the last time I'd played with them and they'd harmed me with their sharp corners, missing pieces and unfinished edges that left rashes of tin splinters because they were manufactured before toys were made to be safe.
They'd never been magically fixed. No one had come and made them whole, again. Where they'd been missing parts, they still missed parts...and in fact they'd degraded a little bit. Missing empathy or compassion now looked like egotism. Chronic tardiness and broken promises looked like wanton disregard. Sexual issues seemed indicative of other things like basic incompatibility.
And, like I did in years past with the rooms of the progeny, I filled that garbage bag with all the broken toys I'd not played with in too long.
Ex-hub and his refusal to grow up while I raised two kids? Gone. No longer needed.
Ex-bf with the bass and the heroin addiction who wrote beautifully fucked up songs about me? Gone. No longer relevant.
Ex-bf who spent the night with me before he got married to another woman and forgot to mention he was getting married? Gone. Shouldn't have been a toy in the first place.
Ex-bf from Jr High and High School who casually broke my heart after years of happy togetherness? Gone. Gone. Gone.
Just not necessary.
I left a few memories in there. Rex Adler, Radio God, was allowed to stay. He has a place of honour in my memories. You know why if you know me at all. One or two others as well. Plus the most recent. I'm not sure he's broken beyond repair, even though it looks pretty bleak right now.
The rest I threw out, though. I need the room.
Then, just before I tied up the bag, I took a look in the toybox and sighed.
I reached back in there.
I rummaged around and pulled out the memory of GuyThing. I shook him out and took a look.
I frowned.
Then I put him in the bag with the other toys that I'd never pick up again.
Then I tied the bag and put it out at the curb.
I think I did pretty good for my first crack at cleaning the toys out of babe-land.
I told her that I had to write this. I told her that this title had been rattling around in my head for a long time but that I'd never taken the time to flesh it out into reality.
Truthfully, I'd been thinking the title for a long time, but had no idea what words to put with it. Suddenly as I was talking, it came to me with a thud and a crash. I had to put hard, hot pink, acrylic nails to keyboard and set it down in stark black on white text:
Every once in a while, when my TOU violations were but itty-bitty versions of the full-sized adolescent humans they are today, I'd go into their rooms and examine the toyboxes.
Just me, a garbage bag and a sense of determination that anything not useful would be thrown out.
Broken toys, pieces of toys with no main parts, sharp edges, jammed buttons and nutella in the gears were all good reasons to throw away crap that was taking up space in their lives without enriching them.
I'd clean out the clutter of their physical space, getting rid of everything that I could tell they couldn't put to good use, wouldn't put to any use or that could harm them. Things they'd outgrown was a prime reason to throw something away.
"You're too old to play with this, Curdleator."
"Sorry, BooBerry, you'll hurt yourself if you keep this around."
I was merciless. If it wasn't necessary, it didn't need to take up space.
Oh, sure...there were some things that were sacred cows. Some things that had to remain, no matter how old and decrepit they became.
TheCurdleator had a teddy bear that I'd passed on to him the day he was born...that had been given to me the day I was born. Theodore was absolutely beyond reproach no matter how nasty he looked.
TheBoo was the proud owner of a doll my parents had had made for me when I was a girl...Violet had a get out of jail free card, too...no matter how tattered and torn she became.
Some things you keep because they have meaning. The rest...it can go.
Oddly, though, despite the fact that I'm ruthless and beyond cruel with refusing to hold on to physical mementos, I'm guilty of never-ever-ever-ever-EVER cleaning out my emotional toybox.
Of never clearing out my mental deadwood.
Of letting my broken toys just hang out there, cluttering up my mental toybox so that I can't put anything else in there.
I steeled myself today.
I breathed deeply.
I exhaled deeply.
In with the butterflies and out with the bees.
I blew a thick layer of dust off the lid of that toybox today and then opened it up.
Oh no. They were all in there. Crammed in together, cheek to jowl, all the broken toys I'd thrown away after they had hurt me.
They were exactly the way I'd left them the last time I'd played with them and they'd harmed me with their sharp corners, missing pieces and unfinished edges that left rashes of tin splinters because they were manufactured before toys were made to be safe.
They'd never been magically fixed. No one had come and made them whole, again. Where they'd been missing parts, they still missed parts...and in fact they'd degraded a little bit. Missing empathy or compassion now looked like egotism. Chronic tardiness and broken promises looked like wanton disregard. Sexual issues seemed indicative of other things like basic incompatibility.
And, like I did in years past with the rooms of the progeny, I filled that garbage bag with all the broken toys I'd not played with in too long.
Ex-hub and his refusal to grow up while I raised two kids? Gone. No longer needed.
Ex-bf with the bass and the heroin addiction who wrote beautifully fucked up songs about me? Gone. No longer relevant.
Ex-bf who spent the night with me before he got married to another woman and forgot to mention he was getting married? Gone. Shouldn't have been a toy in the first place.
Ex-bf from Jr High and High School who casually broke my heart after years of happy togetherness? Gone. Gone. Gone.
Just not necessary.
I left a few memories in there. Rex Adler, Radio God, was allowed to stay. He has a place of honour in my memories. You know why if you know me at all. One or two others as well. Plus the most recent. I'm not sure he's broken beyond repair, even though it looks pretty bleak right now.
The rest I threw out, though. I need the room.
Then, just before I tied up the bag, I took a look in the toybox and sighed.
I reached back in there.
I rummaged around and pulled out the memory of GuyThing. I shook him out and took a look.
I frowned.
Then I put him in the bag with the other toys that I'd never pick up again.
Then I tied the bag and put it out at the curb.
I think I did pretty good for my first crack at cleaning the toys out of babe-land.
