I Don't Play

When my kids were little(r), one of the biggest struggles I had was when they asked me to play with them.  I had various responses-- you wanted a sister.  Now play with her... I can't right now...or, most often, Let's do crafts! People would say, I can't believe all the creative stuff you come up with for your kids to do! I would nod, but what I really wanted to say was, don't you know that if you don't keep them busy they'll want you to play with them?

My daughters painted, they colored.  In the winter, I'd fill spray bottles with cold water and food coloring, and they'd paint the snow. In the summer I'd buy huge amounts of butcher paper and they would create collages that I'd then tape to the garage door.  On Halloween we'd make all of our own yard decorations. We built race cars out of boxes, masks out of paper plates, Christmas presents out of clay.  All so that they would forget to ask me to play with them.

I played when I was little. We moved nearly every year when I was in elementary school, but the one belonging I had that I made sure I kept with me was my box of Barbies.  It was an old cardboard box, falling to pieces, filled with every Barbie doll I owned. We lived close enough to bike to the house of the Doll House Lady, an old lady who got the dolls that were donated to Goodwill and fixed them up and sold them on her back porch. Every time I had two nickles to rub together, I would ride my bike to the Doll House Lady's house and buy a Barbie. It was the most delicious feeling of my childhood.

I spent hours on the floor of my bedroom, or on the big bed I shared with my sisters, playing with my Barbies.  I had a lot of them, but they were all embroiled in dangerous, highly dramatic lives.  And every time I walked into the room, I could pick them up and know all of their stories.  I knew which story needed to be dealt with first, and I knew who all the players were. The whole story clicked into place in my brain, although I never knew what the ending was-- the story unfolded as I played. And I played alone. Luckily, my sisters were too old, and my brother... well, if you don't have a brother, I will tell you now they are useless when it comes to Barbies. GI Joe, GI Shmoe. I never wanted to play with anyone else.  Other people ruin the story.

I remember being probably twelve (and still playing with my Barbies) and coming to the realization that adults don't play. I remember being overtaken by chills.  This was nearly as bad as when, later that year, I realized that people died.  I remember thinking, that will never happen to me-- I will never stop playing with my Barbies.  Although, of course, I did. But I quit playing with Barbies to, eventually, become a writer, so I'm not so sure I quit playing entirely.

Not too long ago my oldest daughter had the same realization.  Adults don't play. She didn't seem as struck by panic as I was, but she's never been much for playing on her own, anyway. She plays mostly as a way to advance or establish social heirarchy, not as a release for the stories in her brain. As she gets older (10 and a half now, whoa), I see her play switching to the kind of play that will serve her well in a few years when she tells me to go to hell and I suddenly become public enemy number one: she does her hair, she tries on outfits, she breaks into my makeup. She'll still engage in a bout of imaginative play if her little sister comes up with a really great proposal, but long gone are the days when I would hand them a canoe paddle and send them out into the backyard with the instructions to play. I don't mourn the loss of play as much as I mourned the passing of the years of magic (Santa/Tooth Fairy-- those were great years.  I've never had so much fun in my life as when I created a Tooth Fairy template for Tooth Fairy/Tooth Loser correspondence, or watched as my nephews grew up and took the baton and began creating elaborate almost-Santa-sighting on my sister's property in Iowa on Christmas Eve).

Adults don't play, it's true.  At least in my case.  I'm down for wandering bike rides, sloppy hikes through the woods, catastophic messes in the name of crafting.  But I don't play.  I haven't for a very long time. It's my one thing-- the thing I was never willing to share.