Growing up I had GI Joe, He-Man and Star Wars action figures. I flew them around in shoes, played with them in their castles, and took them on missions wherever they were needed.
Who knew those things were so much the rage, if I kept them in their original packaging, they probably could have paid for my college tuition? Heck, possibly my retirement? But hey, that’s another blog post.
My action hero phase probably didn’t last as long as some kids’. My demand is not the reason those things became collectors’ items.
I began playing with LEGOS, and collecting baseball cards. Soon I gave up baseball cards when I discovered the transformative power of music. Before I knew it, I was traveling in the adult world.
You meet a woman, you marry, and eventually you learn what having an actual decorating style looks like. Apparently you reach a stage in life when it’s no longer appropriate to have pictures of Jim Morrison adorning your living room walls, no matter how much you liked Road House Blues. But hey, trees and landscapes are aesthetically pleasing, too.
Eventually you become a parent, and something magical happens. It’s the circle of life. That “adult” decorating style goes out the window, or at least gets overrun, and it becomes acceptable for function to outrank style. I’m not talking about the Jim Morrison posters (those stay put away, or at least displayed in a far more discrete location), I’m talking about the resurgence of toys in your life again.
Now, sometimes I think about the ways it sucks to be a grownup. There are bills to pay and chores to do.
Then I think about the fact that a key feature to our front room is the toy basketball hoop and racetrack. I have two options for what to think about this. I can blaze on with my “adult” decorating style, and not accept anything other than functional furniture, or pictures of trees. Or, I can act like Tom Hanks in Big. Play with it all, and accept everything!
Jamie’s not much of an action figure kid either, at least not yet. I don’t need to fly GI Joes around. But I like having Jamie cook for me in his toy kitchen. I also work from home, and sometimes when I get stuck on a project it’s nice to take a couple free throws, or run a car down a racetrack.
Now all I need is a life-size keyboard and to learn how to play it with my feet. When you feel like Tom Hanks in Big, the world can’t be all that bad.
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