BioWriMo Year Eight: Playing and Imagining

I turned seven at the end of 1997.

I remember this birthday somewhat clearly and it’s the first one I can remember. For some reason it was at McDonald’s because I was a stupid kid and stupid kids like cheap fast food. There was a big plastic throne where they sat the kid and it had a number wheel thing that could be adjusted to show their age.

My brother kept turning the number back to six and I would cry and turn it back because he’s a big troll and he kept telling me that whatever the throne said became true and I was a very cry-y kid.

I don’t know why, but I always thought of this as a turning point of a year in my life. Yes, I was awkward and naïve. But I also had some friends, my cousins and neighbors and some church people. Really, the year was probably no different than the previous, but for some reason I always think of things happening when I was “like seven”.

In 1998 Pokémon became a thing and my brother and I got into it via some of the kids on the other side of the wash. We got a few cards and pretended to know how to play. I mean eventually we got substantial amounts of the cards with our allowances and actually learned to play, but for a while we just did what we could with what we had.

We also played with Legos and Star Wars toys a lot. Aaron and I played together a lot, yes, but a lot of the time I liked to play alone with my toys. Like I’d give them personalities and have them interact. Beast Wars figures would play with Beanie Babies and I’d build whole communities that were poorly imagined, but imagined nonetheless. There was a big timeline on the wall (because homeschool) and I'd put them in at various points. I guess this could be called the real start of my creativity. Maybe that’s why it was an important year to me.

Aaron got Pokémon Red and I was jealous and a tag-along kid and so I remember the rest of that story but it happened when I was eight so you guys will have to wait for that.