I woke up this past Saturday a little bit frayed. I chalked it up to not being able to work out for a little while but there was more to it than that. The gears in my brain are always turning and it produced a thought that I was rather overwhelmed by.

Among my many hobbies, one is LEGO. I love Legos, I always have since I was a wee lad. As a kid, I couldn't get as many as I wanted, but to be fair I wanted an obscene amount of them. I especially desired a pirate ship.

Well, after college, at the same time I went into IT, I started working a weekend job at the local vintage toy store, Big Fun Toys, which was a bit of a franchise that started in Cleveland. I was a regular there and one day they asked if I could come in on the weekends and give them a little additional help under the table. I was super happy to do so.

Those were some of my happiest days, all the people who work there are tremendously friendly, and the owner was more than fair even if I do think a couple of his policies are hopelessly American. They are the best people I've ever worked for.

One of the reasons for that judgment from me is that they offer all their employees an extremely generous discount. With that, combined with my full time day job, I was able to purchase many of the Legos I had yearned for at various times in my life. I eventually even got my hands on a sweet pirate ship.

I had to put my collection away for a while during my foray into alcoholism. I had no room for it and my ex girlfriend was nice enough to store it in her basement for a couple of years while I had nothing resembling space. When I found my current apartment, I was excited to set aside a very large space upstairs to build the Lego city of my dreams.

I had some ambitious plans, all I needed to do was put them into motion and start the long arduous process of building. Unfortunately, between my drinking and my other hobbies, Legos just fell by the wayside.

But then, even after I stopped drinking, I just couldn't motivate myself for them. I definitely have cycles of interest, no doubt related to whatever my attention deficit is tied to, but I simply have not found myself with an interest in Legos in a while, even after trying to get into them a few times.

Well, this past Saturday, as I laid in bed hoping in vain that I would fall back asleep, I had this thought of how much space that whole Lego section was taking up, and how I used none of it. It also severely disrupted the feng shui of the room, and I often didn't like being there because of how cramped the room felt despite it being larger than my bedroom. It discouraged me from even having guests within.

I asked myself why I don't put all of that stuff in my basement. I had planned to put out a section in my basement for my musical instruments and extra pieces of armor, but it occurred to me that all of those were things I engaged with far more often than Legos and perhaps I should keep them upstairs.

I stewed on it for about an hour, and then I found myself putting loose sets into boxes and disassembling the table. By the time I was leaving for curling, everything was in my basement.

The room is very open now, and I think flows a lot better. I feel like maybe I might even be encouraged to set aside some time in the future to keep up with my keyboard practice. Seems pretty useful to internalizing music theory, which I know very little about.

It is sad to be putting my Legos away. Everyone tells me that they're just in my basement so I can go down and play with them when I eventually decide to but let's face it, I probably won't.

I don't exactly know when or how I fell out of love with them. I had a small town built once back in 2018, and had a little self insert guy who was constantly put upon by the chaos of his little world. I adored it.

Maybe I don't feel like playing God anymore. Or maybe toys just aren't subbing my woof like they used to. The last couple toy shows I've been to, I've had my eyes on old board games more than anything else.

I've collected most everything I wanted as a kid. There's a few things here and there that would be cool to find, and occasionally I find a forgotten childhood treasure, but for the most part, it's become a curiosity in my house rather than anything I actively desire.

My whole life I've adored toys, they were one of my favorite things that always left me feeling safe and wanted when everything else felt like it was the opposite. I've always believed that if the things that made me happy kept making me happy, then I should keep doing them, right?

I just figured if they kept making me happy in my 20s and even my 30s, they'd make me happy forever. But maybe that isn't the case. A lot of the happiness I have found is my own personal work and investment into whatever it is that does supposedly make me happy, but it just doesn't feel like this is what I want anymore.

I collect this series of figures called Mythic Legions. They're from a small indie company that makes these really cool really high quality dark fantasy figures. They're a bit on the pricey side and that becomes at least doubly so once they hit the secondary market. I have a few dozen of them, some of them rather rare, and they are cool but I just can't keep justifying the price. One of the Facebook groups I'm in, I see now and again some younger guy posting their first fig after yearning for one for a long long time, and I feel privileged that I jumped into it on a lark.

I still enjoy having my collections, don't get me wrong, but lately life has felt better when I'm reading books or playing music or painting miniatures or having those soul baring conversations with dear friends that remind you that we're all supposed to connect to one another.

I'm excited for the new space in my activity room. I've got my keyboard and theremin and some of my additional armor pieces up there. I'll have to get some surfaces for them, but I already have some ideas for the space that's going to make it look really cool and give me all the space I need. I can have Snyper's toys out without it feeling like a trip hazard, too. And it'll make it easier to have Caitlin in there for when we eventually want to finish the game Stray (2022).

It's scary to put the past away, to look forward to the possibility of the future. Part of me wants to just chalk it up to being a manic swing and keep things going as they are but that idea makes my blood run cold like I'm sentencing myself to death.

It's okay to outgrow things. And like everyone says, it's still right there in my basement if the fancy ever strikes me again.

I'm grateful for all the joy it's brought me, but it might have to just be a memory for now.