scenes from a childhood: barbies, balls, and a broken, bleak world

Before you know me too long, you'll probably know a couple things about me.  You'll know that I have one too many pee-my-pants stories, and you'll also probably hear me gleefully admit that I "played Barbies" well into high school, and that I even made a feeble attempt to revive the practice while home on break from college.  And if you're lucky to take a peek at my high school scrapbook, you'll find a whole page devoted to barbie "family pictures."  Yes, I remember the point where our barbie-playing had evolved to the point where my sisters and I took pictures with my digital camera of our barbies in family units.

Growing up in rural South Dakota on a farm, I learned strength and independence quickly.  I did, however, take an abnormally long time to "grow up."  I view this as a strength rather than a weakness, but I find that in many ways I'm still a child at heart.  It takes hard knocks to fully grow up, and I was spared a lot.  And I apparently retained a healthy childlike imagination well into high school.

Barbies began for me when I was in first or second grade, and, quite ironically, are connected to my tendency to wet my pants with an alarming frequency.  My mom promised me my very own barbie if I could manage to not have an accident for a month.  

Let's just say that my first-time-ownership of a Barbie was somewhat of a miracle.  

Soon, though, my sister and I had accumulated a whole army of Barbies.  And then the fun really began.  They all, of course, had names.  Some were more coveted than others, mainly due to the condition of their hair.  Every time we decided to play barbies, we'd drag the huge container out and begin the process of "you-you-you."  Each barbie would be laid out and we'd take turns picking them school-yard style until none remained.  Well, sometimes some remained that neither of us wanted, and those got put back in the crate.  Then we'd do the same with clothing, bedding, and accessories.  Then we'd each take our newly assigned goodies to opposite corners of the room, line the barbies up, and start picking out clothing and accessories for each depending on who "looked best" with each thing.

Naturally the "ugly" barbies got the "ugly" stuff.

We weren't shallow or worldly or anything.  Not us.

We only had two Kens (in the later years we had three) so we would fight over who got the "better" Ken, and what clothing each got.  And so it always worked out that a barbie family would be comprised of a mom and dad, a bunch of female children, and a few female "servants" to make things interesting.  The servants received the ratty and torn clothing and bedding.

We'd also take all the books out of our bookshelves and divide them up.  We'd set the books up on their side to create walls for our barbie houses.  Who needs an actual barbie house when you can make something so much more interesting with books?  (We had a barbie house that we actually tore apart so we could use the wall and floor segments in the same way we used books.  The patio floor became the "ball room" for the lucky one of us who managed to receive that during you-you-you.)

After an hour or two or three of dividing up all our barbie stuff and creating rooms and scenarios in which our barbies would live, the garage sales would begin.  You see, we had a lot of fake money that we would also divide up at the beginning.  And we'd sell off stuff we didn't want on garage sales.  And, if we wanted any chance of gaining something that we actually wanted from the other, we had to sell some of our nicer stuff as well.  So you-you-you wasn't the end.

At some point, one of us would decide it was time for a "ball."  We'd send an invite across the room, and give a set time for the ball to begin.  We'd begin frantically dressing our barbies and doing their hair so they'd look their very best for the ball.  And, since we usually set up house in my sister's room, we'd head to my room for the ball, since there was much more floor space in there.  

The barbie ball was nothing like Cinderella's ball.  The barbie ball was epic.

You see, it was actually more like a beauty pageant.  We'd agree upon a bunch of different competitions, including "best dressed," "best hair," "best swimsuit," "most beautiful," "best accessories," etc.  Whoever was hosting the ball would bring along coveted possessions to act as prizes to the barbie that won.  It was a ball. (Har, har)

Where I am under the impression that most kids "played make-believe" while playing Barbies, most of our time was consumed with you-you-you, garage sales, and balls.  We were competitive kids, I guess.  (Hmmm, no surprise there).  

There was a little make-believe, though.  And, perhaps most fascinatingly, make-believe almost always revolved around the servants, at least for me.  I loved playing the part of the servant who was hated by the family and forced to slave away in return for no money and no respect.  I loved having her run to her room to sob on her appropriately ratty bed, or even have her run away in the family car.  I sympathized with her low status, her despised-ness.  She never really escaped her low station.  She never got to attend the balls.  Her hair was ratty and her appearance not improved by the nice dresses.

Then, one day, I grew up.  I went to college.  I remember clearly coming home and wanting so desperately to play barbies.  I remember getting one of my sisters to play with me.  I remember it lasting only half-way through you-you-you before I realized that the magic was gone.

And I was sad.  Because, you see, the magic is still alive in my memory.  I still think about how fun it was, imagining that it'd still be fun today.  But my childlike imagination died sometime between high school and college, and now it's probably gone for good.  Of course, as I moved from elementary school to junior high to high school, the amount of garage sale-ing and balls (and even best family picture contests) increased while the amount of servant-centered make-believe decreased.  But we still played, and that was what mattered.  The magic was still alive.  

But, when I went to college, I found myself competitive as ever, and I found myself inexplicably drawn to human tragedy.  I found history as a passion, and discovered that the things I most liked writing about were things like slavery, the Holocaust, or an 1888 Midwestern blizzard that killed 150 school children with its ferocity.  I was drawn (and still am) to how humans deal with tragedy and adversity.  I identified with pain and with hardship.  I don't know why.  My childhood was so idyllic, so un-marred by pain and suffering.  I didn't face anything truly difficult until late high school.  

I'd like to think that God made me to care.  I'd like to believe that to stop caring is to stop loving God.  And so, as I find myself "growing up" more every day, I strive to hold onto that childhood pain I felt as I imagined the suffering of my barbie servants.