One day, you get home from school and sit down to play with your toy of choice. Today is only like yesterday, and the day before that, and all of the days before. However, it doesn’t feel like it used to, and it hasn’t for a while, you realize. No matter how you play, the atmosphere is dull, and you begin to be distracted easily. Gradually, all of the toys you once adored are packed into boxes and shoved into storage or sold. It doesn’t sting the way you expected it to, seeing all of your toys neatly stashed in boxes. Maybe you realize it, or maybe it doesn’t totally cross your mind, but somehow you know: This is the end. 

I was somewhere awkwardly hovering between being a “little kid” and a teenager when I realized it was over. I would only play with my dolls for a few minutes before my attention wavered, gravitating to something more stimulating. It wasn’t long before all of my Barbie dolls had begun to gather dust, traded in for video games. I had forgotten about my dolls until I was tasked by my mother to pack them away into large plastic bins. As I stacked the bins, it hit me that all of my once-cherished dolls were put away for good, and I wasn’t particularly saddened by it. All of the hours, days, and years I’d spent playing with my dolls vanished. In the end, they only looked like things. Be that as it may, it’s only now that I truly understand: That really was the end.