notes from the manic pixie barbie dreamhouse
i met the first love(s) of my life in a support group for little kids with dead parents. first it was nick. and then ben. and then nick again. and then ben. my friend nelly and i liked to switch boyfriends each time our group met. we were extremely cooperative about the whole matter, always deciding together which one of us would get which boy, and we never disagreed.
i recall nothing particularly therapeutic about the group, but i do remember it as my initiation into the wild and wonderful world of fill-up-your-diary-with-heart-doodle-level crushes. i was five years old and finally understood what it meant to fall in love. by first grade, i’d perfected the art, and had a new target entirely. his name was nick too, and neither of his parents were even dead! it was a dream come true. this nick would even let me smack his butt really hard during recess and everything. swoon.
besides the undeniable air of romance, i also remember that support group because i found the place to be rather drearily decorated. our parents were dead for fuck’s sake! didn’t we at least deserve some aesthetic interiors to look at as we passed the orphan boys stalkery post-it notes?
i fantasized about starting one of my own, except the walls would be pink and striped, and the decor would approximate the inside of a polly pocket pollyville dollhouse. i didn’t need to know much about child psychology to understand that my vision would be a much better place for healing trauma. at least for me and nelly. if nick and ben really loved us like we thought they did, they could live with it.
at home, i didn’t even have my own room to decorate, let alone a state licensed children’s mental health facility. i had the space on my wall between the bottom bunk and the top where my sister slept, and i did my best with what i was working with, but it wasn’t much. until very recently in fact, i didn’t have a room of my own. i’m not complaining. the room i had was great, but i couldn’t go balls to the wall transforming it into the plushy, pink, daughter-of-a-real-housewife room of my dreams.
now that i do though, i finally understand the desire to create an inner sanctum catered specifically to my own peculiar and exacting tastes, which i like to think of as lana del rey off her meds core. god, it’s fun being a girl. i guess that’s the motif of my room now, if i had to pin it down. being a girl. everything in it is fluffy and pretty and sugar-sweet. and i had a hell of a good time making it so. did i need a unicorn bean bag chair? a large collection of lisa frank diamond painting kits? i don’t know, is the ceo of goldman sachs jewish?
at the very least, if you’re like me and you’re gonna go manic shopping no matter what anyone says, but you still like your money, do so at five below and tj maxx. really, you won’t regret it. i certainly don’t.
at this moment of tumult and chaos in my life, i’m told that routine is especially important. creature comforts. i need to stay put, in more ways than one, as much as my heart tells me to run around the park in the middle of the night and try to make friends with my unhoused neighbors. we’re not doing that right now though, as fun as it sounds. we’re staying in my room, i remind myself. my cotton candy room where everything’s soft and nothing hurts. and i actually enjoy it, this sitting still, now that i have a place to call my own.
it’s nice to be comfortable. to sleep among my dreamy coloring book pages and crystals and candles. i’ve created the exact place that pervy little girl would’ve liked to sleep in. and i don’t care if that’s weird to say, because it’s nice for me, and i need that right now.
