Integration

Two things have run continuous through my life: Barbie dolls and books.

I think it's because those are the two things that I remember receiving at an early age (about 2 or 3) and are the two things that I've held onto the longest in my life. And while I've left behind my books from childhood, my Barbie dolls seem to have traveled with me whereever I've gone.

Over the years, I've thought about ways to get rid of the Barbie dolls. Ebay, tag sale, etc., etc.--always trying to come up with ways to get rid of them. But there's some kind of emotional charge connected to these dolls that keeps me hanging onto them.

It's an emotional charge that I don't necessarily have with books. From outright throwing out old paperbacks, to books either left behind or passed on to lovers and friends, I've never had too much of a difficult time parting with books.

Maybe it has something to do with memories connected to the Barbies and to the books. Barbies were more often than not gifts. Books were, more often than not, purchases I made for myself. Even as an adult, Barbies didn't just come into my life the way that books did. Barbies were precious--were gifts, or to be had only on special occasions, or when there was money for them.

Books are practical as well as frivolous. They contain information of some sort or another--even fiction. Fiction tells of life experience. Non-fiction can be anything from science to history to biography to business. There are worlds in books. These are worlds that mean the same when younger as when older. The worlds of books never really change--although what we glean from them can be different as we get older. Books like Interview with the Vampire, the Great Gatsby, and Salem's Lot had a strong charge for me in late adolescence, whereas I don't think I would have fully understood the Bridges of Madison County or Dopefiend, or the Maltese Falcon quite the same way as I do in adulthood.

Barbies, on the other hand, have one meaning when one is younger, and another when older. When younger, they are tools to help you act out adult scenarios with friends, as well as help girls imagine their adult selves (some say to our detriment--I do not believe so.) When we girls are older, Barbies are frivolous mannequins that remind us not just of our childhood, but of idealized selves. Many of us want to be like Barbies--elegantly dressed, frozen in time. We'd like that, for a moment, at some time. When we are young, Barbies help us imagine the future. When we are older, Barbies are rememberances.

But I've had Barbies into adulthood as well. Esp. as my second marriage was ending, I started to take refuge in Barbies again. It happened when I broke my right leg, then had surgery, where a plate and screws were put in to stabilize and strengthen my right ankle. My ex and I went to a huge toy store, and I bought up a whole bunch of Barbie dolls--the kinds of dolls and outfits that I never would have been allowed to have as a kid.

I think I went a little nuts back then.

I realize now that I went nuts for a reason--I wanted to retreat into rememberances, into a child-world where everything was beautiful and under my control.

In the adult world, I felt as if I had been diminished, that I'd failed as a wife because I didn't want children and I'd been ill for a long time--and, the fact of the matter is, I the love between my husband and me just wasn't the kind of love that adults have. It was a strange sort of co-dependence. But love? I'm not so sure any more....

Barbie's world was a world of the still possible, and I hunkered down in that world because mine was less than possible...

I bought some new bedroom furniture recently, which meant that I had to remove my old furniture. One piece I put outside my apartment with a sign saying "Free" and it was gone within 2 hours. Another piece, the lingerie chest I'd built from a kit, and still in very good shape, I sold to another neighbor for $20. The six-drawer dresser, however, I decided to keep. Which meant that I had to make room for it in my office.

This meant that I would have to deal with what was in the large plastic moving containers stacked against one of the walls in my office. I called all the stuff in those containers "the detritus of old relationships."

It is an apt description.

The box of paperbacks, which had been sitting in the bottom of my coat closet, was chock full of goodies. My copy of "Something Wicked This Way Comes," and "Carrie" among other jewels of the late 70's and early '80's. I would need to find a place for these books, but seeing them again was like seeing old friends.

The Barbies, however, needed to be dealt with. Would I get rid of them? The ones still in the boxes--sure. There wasn't any particular attachment to them, except for the Hallmark Christmas Barbie (the one I will never forget, my husband getting upset over and thinking I didn't like because I didn't take it out of the box. how odd. that was why I left it in the box....) So they are now all out in a small closet in the hall, waiting for the day when I round them up, rent a table at a flea market, and sell them.

Other Barbies, and other dolls--like my Norphin Troll Bride and Groom--I would have to deal with. The idea that I would get rid of them on eBay wasn't going to happen. I just don't have the time for learning all the ins and outs of eBay, of setting up an account, getting involved in the community, etc., etc., etc.

I would have to integrate these dolls into my life somehow.

Telling the stories of some of them seemed to help me put them in perspective. A little doll in a ballerina outfit, with curly red hair, was given to me by my ex-boyfriend's mother. I know it was one of those things that was meant to help me want to have children, but it really didn't. We broke up later that year....

Some of the trolls went directly to the garbage. They were pretty dirty, rather messed up, and didn't seem to have any kind of value. I'd already kept the Halloween ones as well as the Christmas ones. The Bride and Groom would go out on the flea market table, along with a few other stuffed animals....

The beautiful Effanbee dolls, I decided, I would put on display at some point, when I had a good doll cabinet--along with my Chrissy doll and an 18 inch Hawaiian doll my sister brought back for me from her honeymoon when I was 7.

But the Barbies....

A few of them I've not made a decision on--the ones with broken legs especially. Maybe I'll throw them away, and maybe not. Some I'll change the outfits on, like the blond Twist 'n Turn, and put them out at another time.

But others I've already put out, on two of the shelves of my wicker bookshelf, in front of some books I really don't look at all that much. The Malibu Barbie that needs a change of wardrobe. My Italian Barbie, which was given to me, at Christmas, by my first husband, with a promise ring around her leg (it was very cute and a wonderful surprise.) The Indiana Jones and Elizabeth Taylor dolls that I got when I lived with my boyfriend in between marriages. The Happy Holidays Barbie from 1997--the last Barbie from my second husband. My PJ doll, which was the last fashion doll I'd get, when I was in the hospital when I was 11.

And a small bride doll with a handmade outfit--made for me by my godmother, for my second marriage...

Funny how I didn't get a bride doll for my first marriage. I think everyone was afraid I'd get pregnant right away--as bride dolls are, in Sicilian, the last doll a woman is supposed to get.

Like my marriages, though, I don't think that tradition has much significance for me, in my life...

Over on the dresser are three boxes of 12 inch high Marilyn Monroe dolls--other gifts from my ex-boyfriend-between-marriages. I'll find a place for them, too.

I don't seem to mind having the dolls in my office. I didn't want them in my bedroom (too creepy) or living room (inappropriate.) Here, though, they seem to be fine. Like the books, they are mementos of where I've been, who I was, what I did "back then." The memories of the people who gave them to me aren't so bad, even though the people aren't part of my life anymore--perhaps because I've moved beyond the bad/sad memories, into my own adult life, where things are frustrating at times, but not really all that bad....

Perhaps all it took was getting more of me, and of my own life. Perhaps it was beginning to see the dolls as not totally sentimentally attached to the people who gave them to me, but as objects, like my books, that were a big part of my life at one time, but now relegated to another part where they're not used as much, or for any particular purpose.

No, I don't feel a need to bury myself in rememberances. And I don't feel that I've "lost" a part of my life. In fact, with dating again, I feel like I've gained a part of my life back (I've never had so many guys chase after me since I was 25--it's an absolute laugh riot! thank you Internet dating!!)

Like the books, the dolls are totems, markers of periods in my life. As such they are part of my life, but not my life. Rather than shut away where I will never see them, or discarded in a way that amnesia discards memories, I have integrated them into my life, in a way that makes sense--not in my bedroom nor in my living room, places where I do not need memories of old relationships hanging around. They are in my office, because that's where the space is, and that's actually where they have less "power" to evoke memories that might impact friendships or, esp. relationships. They don't need to be given away--they just need to be part of me in a place that's appropriate--like all memories, and all books, and all the things that, continuously, make up who I am.