Why I Collect Toys

I hate the fact that I got rid of so many of the toys I loved as a child. After keeping them for so long, when time's got hard and I needed money, I resorted to selling them. Not all of them, maybe half, but enough to make me regret it. I thought I was ready to say goodbye. To grow up. To leave behind what I once loved.

It's weird how everyone eventually says goodbye to their childhood and most of us think nothing of it. But some of us need to hold onto it any way we can, usually by the toys we played with. And we spend our lives trying to reassemble the collections we once had. Most kids got rid of their toys when they outgrew them but I come from a family of pack rats so we held onto all of mine, a fact which I love today.

I think some people love their old toys because it brings them back to a simpler time, before we had to be adults. But for me it's more about holding onto who I was back then, and those toys I played with are a symbol of that. I had to change in order to make it through. I had to lose parts of myself that I didn't want to. But as long as I held onto the pieces of my childhood that made me who I am, that little kid was still within me.

Selling them off, I see today, that was symbolic. I had to sell them in order to make it through, just like I had to put them down and grow up before I was ready to in order to make it through back then. Do they remind me of an easier and happier time? No, not really, they remind me that they were there to help me through the loneliness.

I didn't want to be like the kids around me, I didn't strive to be like their athlete heroes. I didn't want to get into trouble and do things they thought were fun, it wasn't me. My friends were my toys, and I wanted to be more like them. I wanted to be larger than life. People suck. My plastic heroes and their cartoon counterparts taught me how to be greater than what I saw around me. Where I'm from, we were all destined to fail, and we did. Me included. I never became what I set out to be. I watched my goals fall, one by one, until I was left with only one, surviving. To be perfectly honest, I didn't think I'd make it to 35. But here I am, unemployed, no college degree, no friends, and some days, no hope.

These pieces of poseable plastic get me through, just like they did when I was a kid, and just like they did the last time we found ourselves out of work and desperate. Jaime has a great job now, which gives me the opportunity to do what I was put here to do. I'm unemployed, yes, but this time is different. This time I choose to be. This time around I'm an author.

Am I unemployed or self employed? From off-trail hiking guides to novels. They are in direct correlation with my childhood. I've been hiking and collecting toys since I was born, playing with my action figures the whole car ride to Acadia or the White Mountains or even the smaller hikes in Connecticut. I didn't destroy my toys like the kids around me, I treasured them. They weren't just pieces of plastic to chew on and bang off one another. What of my favorite activities was naming off characters to keep my parents entertained. What do you mean, of course they found it entertaining. Hiuking wasn't hiking if we weren't pretending Skeletor and his henchmen were after me. Every stream crossing was the lava emanating from Snake Mountain. Mer-Man was always waiting to emerge from every muddy section of trail we had to hop on rocks to cross. My heroes and villains are what got me through.

Every novel I write, from secret stairways to magical worlds, zombie outbreaks, children coming of age and finding themselves, finding love, finding themselves to be greater than they knew possible, those stories I write are pulled straight from the 'dolls' people tease me for collecting. They made this possible. Those hunks of plastic gave me a voice. I survived because of them. I owe them my life. On more than one occasion, they've saved me. They were there when no one else was. The least I can do is treasure them. Display them prominently and proudly. Give them the respect that they deserve. And love them, because without them, there would be no me to love.