"Emotional Support Barbie"

 I read this news story today.

Apparently, some adult women are going to stores and buying themselves Barbies as an "emotional support" thing (As with many of these oddball trends, yes, it started on TikTok). 

There are some wild claims being made here; that they're reconnecting with their inner child or feel like kids again. And yeah, good for them if it works? But I don't know. I have a small shelf of mostly-neglected-now Made To Move Barbies that I've bought over the past 10 or so years. And that every "emotional support" book or sweater's-worth of yarn or quilt kit or, yes, even stuffed animal I've bought doesn't bring the emotional healing that you think you'll get when you order it. 

(And yet: I keep trying. And perhaps, yes, I should get the big box of Barbie clothes - many of them home-sewn vintage pieces purchased from Etsy sellers - and redress the dolls again)

But I admit - that little void inside my chest, that emptiness, that feeling that, as it did this evening when I was trying to practice piano made me cry big fat tears when I started thinking again, randomly, of all the people I've lost in the past few years - it's not going to be filled by a doll, even if it were a doll much nicer and fancier than a Barbie. 

That said, I do have the stuffed animals still and many nights I find hugging one to my chest helps me to sleep. But emotional-support? I don't know.

The other thing they talk about is "play" for adults. And I admit, I don't......really know how any more? Like, I can't really do the imaginative thing I did as a kid any more, where boxes became a dollhouse and stuff like that. And I'm not into organized sports or things like "gaming," which doesn't seem like play to me. And I'm not comfortable with the "dress up" thing one woman talked about. Maybe if you don't have kids you don't get to? 

Though I wish I could get back into that world of play; it's tiring and sad being a serious adult nearly all the time. 

I mean, mostly my "play" is really "collecting" (as I look at my collection of vintage My Little Ponies, that I barely even move around to new locations these days). Maybe I'm just too busy? Maybe the fear of seeming "childish" when I was younger got it beaten out of me?

And yet....I wonder if those women are expecting too much? Or maybe someone who has never spent money on a "silly" thing, maybe freeing yourself to do that does give some release that I will never know, because I never gave up spending money on silly things?

Or maybe I'm taking a silly trend too seriously; isn't there a whole genre of internet jokes where someone declares This Would Fix Me and the "this" is something like one of the over-the-top pancake dishes at IHOP? I don't know.