On Barbie
I’m a little emotionally fragile right now; that’s usual
after a big dentist day. (One that included a NYC rite of passage: somehow
landing oneself on the one 6 train car without a/c.) It’s been a day, and it’s
only noon.
The funeral for Elise Finch, my favorite meteorologist,
plays on the television, the church music and preaching timbre of the eulogy
already bringing up a well of feelings related to my past.
And then I read one of Bethany’s posts about little girls
and toys and more critical rites of passage.
---
I didn’t expect the conversation about the Barbie movie to
trigger so much memory and emotion.
I’m a little surprised to discover that Barbie played such a
large role in my coming-of-age story. Fair warning: this is a tough one.
When my parents split up, the bank took our dream
home, the two-story log house nestled on a wooded two-acre lot in the country
that my uncle designed and built for us. My dad had taken my brother, and we
didn’t know where they were. The day that we moved out was apocalyptic and
marked by immense loss and fear. I was fourteen years old when my maternal
family came over on a hot June day to help my mom, my sister, and me move out.
The day before, my mom had forced me to accept a last-minute
invite go to to Six Flags with my ex-boyfriend, a primitive Baptist who was
actively trying to woo me back. When I got home, exhausted and pissed off, my
dog was gone. Mom had used this “opportunity” to take Tippy to the pound,
hoping to avoid any theatrics on my part (and boy did that backfire; I had been
under the impression that Tippy was going to live at my grandparents’ farm).
Hey, I was a sensitive kid. It’s taken me a lifetime to work out my resentment
for that choice she made during a really, really fucking difficult time.
During the process of moving, something went wrong when they
disconnected the washing machine, and brown, iron-rich water flooded the first
floor, ruining the carpet and creating dangerous conditions. It was a hazardous
mess, and they had to flip the breakers to turn off the electricity. Junebugs
got in through the open doors -- buzzing around, divebombing our beverages, and
generally working to tip up our tempers as the heat indoors soared while we
trudged furniture and boxes out.
My family burned bag
after bag of trash on the open fire pit out back, the air peppered with the
terrifying sounds of aerosol cans exploding at random. It felt like a war zone,
and by the time the day was done I was relieved to leave it all behind.
I was going to start high school in the Fall. Life was going
to get better after this. It had to.
---
We were abandoning our home, had abandoned my childhood pet,
and it didn’t feel like much of a stretch to abandon something, myself. So, I
wrote a poem in ink pen on my bedroom wallpaper wishing future occupants a
happier life than I had in that space, and I left a box full of Barbies behind
in my closet.
Now the poem itself made a lot of people furious (why does
Shanna have to complicate an already difficult day with inappropriate
behavior?), but it was the Barbies that really caused a ruckus and a torrent of
confused feelings that stay with me today, seriously 30 years later.
For me, the milestone of starting high school meant growing
up, leaving childish things behind. (In all honesty, I think I quit playing
with my Barbies around age 11? So they’d been chilling in “box jail” for a
while.) It was a decision I made with intent on the scariest day of my life and
at the time, it felt like one of the few paltry things I had agency over. I was
growing up, and good things were going to be ahead despite all the fear and
trauma. If everyone else could walk away from something that used to be
important, why couldn’t I?
---
But then Granny found the box and y’all, she literally lost
her shit. And then it hit me: she had sewed me lots of outfits for my Barbies,
utilizing thin strips of Velcro so I could dress them easily with my tiny hands
when I was a little girl. Her heart was broken because I had turned my back on
this thing she had done for me with joy, creativity, and love. She snatched
that box up and stuffed it into the cabin of their truck, saying, “These are
mine now.” And she kept them somewhere in storage for 29 years, until the day
she died of Covid last year.
The guilt was unbearable, and no one wanted to hear why,
or seemed to understand that we all made some shit decisions in that survival
mode.
I was shamed for being selfish, even cruel, and a little
weird by the family at large.
And I still feel guilty. Careless. Somehow inadvertently
mean when I was trying to do something that meant something to me, something
symbolic just like the words I wrote on the wall.
I don’t remember most of my childhood, but I do know that I
loved those dolls. I do have some hazy memories of playing with them alone –
they were always getting ready for “the party.” Once they got to the party, I
wasn’t really sure what they were supposed to do… so fourteen-or-so Barbies (all
blonde-haired-blue-eyed with the exception of one brunette Barbie and three
Kens – and sadly, obvs all white) were perpetually enjoying getting ready
together for something that never arrived. I’m not sure what the takeaway is
there, but I DO still love getting ready with others (my college friends and I
certainly perfected the art of pre-partying while glamming up).
But, you know, I did grow up. I went to high school, and I
did learn how to act at parties. It’s a lot like getting ready together.
----
My solo play prepared me for the next stage of life; it was
a refuge in a household rift by abuse, lies, worry, and desperation despite our
longing for connection, safety, and unconditional love.
And so yes, I loved my Barbies. I wish Granny knew how much, and that the gifts she gave meant so much more than she could have imagined or intended. My impulsive decision to try and leave the past behind and start growing into who I would choose to be was predicated on her gifts -- she helped create the conditions for my survival and growth.
And that's huge.
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