Next frontier after closets: kids' rooms. Here it gets a little harder as I find bits and pieces of practically every toy under the sun, and a few under the moon. Does this 2mm white plastic thingamabob go with the Star Wars Super Mega Stormtrooper Transport And Salad Shooter? Or is it from the Hot Wheels Race 'Em Chase 'Em Loop O' Icy Dino Death Track? And for goodness' sake, is there ANY Littlest Pet Shop daughter didn't collect a couple years back?!?
It's those 'couple years back' toys that are the worst. The Time Capsule toys...things son and daughter outgrew long ago, but I haven't quite been able to bring myself to let go of because of my memories of who and how they were when they played with them. You see a naked, ballpoint-pen-tattooed Barbie Doll with frustration-pencil hair, or a scotch-taped heap of mismatched toy pieces and construction paper with crayoned scribbles; I see a four-year-old sprite spinning whole alternate universes out of her head, or a six-year-old boy's mammoth (and fully functional) homemade racetrack. Like breadcrumbs in the forest, kids leave these small evidences of who they've been on the way to who they're becoming.
And it's hard to be the bird, y'know?
The saddest line in the Bible: "When I became a man, I put away childish things."
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THe hardest part is letting go. When I had to weed out the toys evan played with at the store it was very difficult, until one day a little one came in the store who didn't have anything. (You just know sometimes)I knew the time was right and gave her the whole bag. She was so greatful and I felt blessed.
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