My Toy Story

We took Brook to see Toy Story 3 on Saturday, not only because she likes Toy Story, but because I grew up watching Toy Story, and having it be by far one of the coolest movies i'd ever seen as a kid. Hard to believe I was 11 when it came out, and now i'm approaching 26.

Toy Story 3, without a doubt, is one of the most emotionally human animated movies I've watched. The notion that we all have to grow up at some point strikes home with every human with a soul.

Everyone grows up having some kind of toy to play with. It kept us entertained. It kept our parents sane, letting them take care of all the adult responsibilities we never had to worry about, while we're busy imagining a sitcom where various characters from TMNT, Ghostbusters, Batman, Mortal Kombat, GI Joe, Hook, Transformers, He-man, WWF wrestlers, and I can't even remember what else, all lived in the Ghostbusters Firehouse. At least, that was what my brother and I came up with.

Bad guys would steal the Ecto-1, the batmobile, the Ecto-2, the Ecto-3, the Robocop car, the GI joe tank, the GI joe jeep, and whatever other vehicles we had... and booby trap them somehow, or plant bombs on them, or whatever else we could think of at the time. Good guys would turn bad. Bad guys would turn good.

...and then you grow up. You get rid of your toys for whatever reason. You move, they're lost in a flood or fire, they get stolen, you give them away...

..but you never forget, all the the time you spent trapping fake ghosts, taking out Shredder, holding wrestling tournaments, promoting good vs. evil, saving the girl, and then coming up with some kind of twist greater than that of an M. Night Shyamalan movie.

Of all the toys I had as a kid. I've kept a few. Others were broken and thown away, some were yard saled, some I had replaced as a gift of nostalgia from my mom. (Who I think still felt guilty about letting my G1 Optimus Prime go when we moved.)
Others, I still don't know what happened to... like my Batman Returns Batmobile, all my batman figures, my Robocop figure & car, my GI joe tank & jeep, all my TMNT stuff... I could probably go on forever. the stuff I still have is far outweighed by the stuff I don't. The things I still have will inevitably go to Noah, and hopefully he'll take better care of some of the stuff than I did.

If there's one thing I could keep now as an adult, it'd be my child-like imagination.

Maybe I can at least re-live those days as Noah gets older.

I'll let Sarah handle Brook, when it comes to passing down all her old barbie stuff.... hah.

-L