My Life Monday

This week's topic is a favorite childhood toy.

This topic is hard for me. I played more with nothing than I did with something, so I'd have to say my favorite childhood toy was my imagination.

As you may know by now, I have a strange title for my personal blog. The inspiration for my title comes from using my "toy" when a friend and I would pretend we were wearing giant invisible rubber underwear. But we did more than just wear invisible underwear...

For many many years my family lived in an apartment in the very bar-ridden section of my down town hometown. Our only "neighbors" were those bars or restaurants. I only knew other kids through family activities or through church. So when my parents told me that we would be moving into a house I was excited for the adventure of playing with other kids who lived nearby. The first week we were in our new home, the neighbor lady came by to welcome us and to introduce her two daughters to me. I couldn't have been more happy or excited! The one that was closer to my own age had hidden herself behind her mother and peeked around her mother's legs. Her brown hair was cut short and she had HUGE brown eyes. That was my first memory of Carrie. Soon enough we became the best of friends.

I learned early on that Carrie had an amazing imagination. She'd come up with things that would boggle my small, untested mind. One of our favorite activities would be marking out our front lawns to make mansions for ourselves. And since we could have things any way we wanted, our mansions were AWESOME! Many times we'd change things up a bit so that we could have any room we wanted, or do anything that we wanted: our mansions had elevators and hundreds of floors. Along with these mansions we had imaginary families. I remember vividly wandering around our yards with our hands tightly fisted...we were pushing our babies in their strollers. We'd often give one another tours of our "homes," just because they would change so much during the weeks! We had SO much fun just imagining our perfect environments and lives. Those are times that will ALWAYS stay with me! I may not remember the exact details of what we did, but the feelings of happiness and contentment will be with me forever.

Now, don't think of me as a crazy lady, I did play with "real" toys as well: my Cabbage Patch doll, My Little Ponies, Strawberry Shortcake, my bean bag doll...but my imagination would have to be my FAVORITE "toy!" It's what has brought me the most fun remembering my childhood.

To see or read other MLM participants visit Rachelle's blog.