Secrets from a Toddler
Playing pretend, loved ones, being present and disassociating
I have been in a state of disassociation recently, not uncommon for me but something I take note of when it happens more than usual.
I’ve been daydreaming more and disappearing into fictional worlds. I take any free time to try and escape my timeline of bad news, politics, work, and all my ambitious plans to make big changes in my life by next year. It's getting a bit overwhelming setting up, what at times feels like, unrealistic expectations for myself.
However, during all this, the little whimsical moments of life’s surprises remind me to feel and be present even if it means tapping into the past.
On my route to the park playground with the Kids I Babysit, I pass an old red Chevy pickup truck with a wine-colored interior.
An alarming wave of emotion had immediately taken over my body which caused me to stop pushing the stroller and verbalize to the kids that, My Grandpa used to have a truck like this.
Unwanted tears sprung up and I was filled with something I can only describe as a sense of nostalgia, childlike wonder, deep sadness, and hope accompanied by an uncomfortable thickness in my throat.
It’s only happened twice before when seeing something or someone has brought on this immediate and intense mind-is-blank feeling of longing for a lost loved one and it’s alarming every time.
A string of questions follow after from the kids like, is it the same truck? and where is he now?
To which I responded, no I don’t think so, but almost, and no he passed away a long time ago but this car is old, you have to crank open the window, can you believe that?
They couldn't.
My Grandpa died when I was 15. And it wasn't the first death or funeral I had experienced and been to, but it was the one I processed the least and had impacted me the most. He was, in some sense, a second father to me.
So seeing his truck that we sold to the neighbors back in New Jersey, suddently show up in my adult life in NYC, had placed me in this intermediary stage. Placing me both in and out of my daily disassociation.
About a year ago I took a writing workshop.
One of the prompts was to think of an object linked to someone you loved and place us in a scene where the object is lost.
I had written about a girl who spirals into a state of panic when she see’s her dead grandfather's flannel jacket appear everywhere:
It seems that every man over 70 is wearing my grandfather's thick flannel jacket. This would be impossible because that exact flannel jacket is hanging on the back of his wooden chair in New Jersey right where he left it 3 days before his passing. But for some reason, this jacket has traveled over streets, parkways, and bridges to every 70-year-old man in my city. Perhaps there is a store for Grandpas that only carries faded, holey oversized flannels. This thought is dizzying. In this new city, new apartment, and new life, my grandfather's old jacket is following me around. This leads me to call home, call mom, my sister, my new friends, and my old friends, and inform them of my discovery and suspicion. This then leads me to question what could my grandfather possibly want to tell me in his next life. Which then makes me wonder if I'm doing something wrong. Or right? Or is this a warning? Or maybe it’s nothing and I'm just seeing things and maybe, somehow that is even more disappointing.
A couple of weeks after seeing the truck, I would sometimes forget it was there. Always right in my path, and every time it would be a small shock, like I have walked into this invisible atmosphere, my mind is blank briefly and then I’m back again.
I played Spot-the-Difference until the truck had become just another car on the street.
The tires are a bit different and the truck bed is a bit different too. The interior isn't duct taped in a few spots, and there are no scratched leather seats with yellow foam peaking out.
The rest of my mornings are filled with the comforting sound of squeaky swings, watching birds dust bathe, and putting collected acorns into pockets.
I am brought to the little bench underneath the playground by One of the Kids I Babysit. He wants to exchange secrets in whispers. He goes first.
Free bananas, he whispers. I chuckle.
Chocolate ice cream, I whisper back.
Beans, he responds.
My secret is pineapple on pizza, I whisper even quieter.
My secret is, he mimics, blueberries.
I say, that’s a good secret, and think of my next one.
How lucky I am that most of my days are filled with play, seeing as I work in childcare. Because amongst the spiraling that often happens, being with kids forces the attention off myself entirely and into their world of pretend, where everything and anything is possible, unpredictable, and present.
