When I Was A Little Girl...

When I was a very young child, my family didn't have much money, which naturally meant that I didn't have a lot of toys. I never thought about it then, of course, because I was happy and content with everything I did have. But looking back now, it’s amazing to think how materially sparse my early youth was, especially because those years are some of the best I can remember.

Even though it's been longer than a decade, I still remember all of these toys. There were three dolls, two of which belonged to my older sister. Only one doll belonged to me, and I named her Boombutt. Her hair was dark brown and impossible to untangle; her legs were rubbery and impossible to straighten; she had no clothes that really fit her. But even though I knew she was ugly, I loved her.

We had a round ball, some blocks, and a handful of stuffed animals, including a little white angel bear that sang Jesus Loves Me. There were two baby dolls as well, one cloth and one plastic. The plastic one had batteries, and she cried when I squeezed her tummy, even though her face was forever smiling.

One of my favorite games to play was Family. We had no dollhouse, but I had a blue plastic toddler chair with an open sort of box at the bottom. This was the ideal little house for my stories—it even had an upper and lower floor. Since none of the dolls could actually fit in the lower level, I used pencils as the family members instead. It was perfect. They were all sharpened to different heights and it was easy to pick out the mom, dad, sisters, brothers, babies, and friends.

I never played video games or watched much TV. I never built with fancy LEGOs or rode in a mini electric ride-on car. Life was simple as a little girl. But I was happy.

I was happy playing for hours on the old, run-down playground beside our apartment, climbing the slides, jumping off the swings, and hiding under the almost-rusting stairs. I loved rescuing worms from puddles after storms, collecting cattails, wild oats, and quackgrass to add in my mud cakes, and finding cicada shells perched on the rough brown bark of the trees.

Looking back, I think that’s where my storytelling began. Not at a desk with a notebook, but on the floor beside a blue plastic chair, deciding which pencil would be the dad and which one would be the brother. I didn’t need a dollhouse or a perfect set of characters; I just needed a story, and I could make one from whatever I held in my hands. Writing, to me, still feels like that: starting with what’s here, finding a way to make it live. We don't need to create complicated worlds or ingeniously unique characters to create a story. We just need the stories to live. And our stories only come alive when it matters deeply to us, in the quiet chambers of our own hearts.

The truth is, you can’t tell if a childhood is “enough” by counting toys. You tell by the fullness of the days, the way the minutes stretch on as imagination comes to life, the way the summer sunset fades into a forever twilight as a child's fingers clutch the chains of a playground swing. When I was a little girl, life was sparse in some ways, but it was so full in others. That’s a lesson growing up tries to make you forget, that joy and meaning rarely arrive packaged in something you can buy.

I think about that often now, in a world where more always feels like the goal. I remind myself of muddy hands and cattail stems, of slides that burned in the summer heat, of pencils sleeping together as a family in their little blue-chair house. When I was a little girl, nothing was polished or perfect. And that’s exactly why it worked.

It’s tempting to believe we need the right tools to start—the right notebook, the right space, the right moment, the right friends. But that little girl knew better. She built worlds with what she had, and she lived inside them. That’s still who I want to be, someone who makes the most of what’s here, who can find the story in it, and who trusts it’s enough.

Because the truth is, I never stopped playing Family. The characters may have changed, the setting may has changed, but I’m still building lives out of what I have—in my writing, in my living, and in my own imperfect, wonderful life.