Memories. I leave a cm of extra hair on dolls I’ve rerooted for myself to match their old broken or cut hair because I would document the transformation for dolls to sell but not my own for some reason, just a change from black to navy on the spreadsheet to say that some work had been done. I got so good at colour matching, blending, de-staining you wouldn’t know a doll’s not brand new. but as I put them away while the new shelves went up, turns out most of my collection have these little extra strands. This is something that now brings pride. It didn’t used to, it used to be justification for having pretty toys of my own. As I prepared Back to School Yasmin for sale, taking down the pretty braid she came with and discovered a massive black sharpie stain, I laughed and a hollow sound came out because I was so very naive. She would never have sent me a doll that could pass as a rare, our trades were never truly fair. We didn’t even talk as equals. And I was too used to making any excuse that might fit. She was so blatant, it’s actually funny now - once the wave of shame passes. Ten years later, I’m so different that I gently cut someone out of my life for being toxic even though they’re on the spectrum because I asked for boundaries and was met with zero willingness to learn how to be a good friend. It felt less like a betrayal than an affirmation to dedicate this precious time to those who actually give growth and being decent a try. Severing with someone starts out like grief then you realise it isn’t a loss at all, your wasted energies are now being directed towards neglected others.
I switched hair dryers to the manky old one as the black one set off some ancient reflex “puppies = important but puppies = distress” in Lily the dog but the problem remains, even though manky hairdryer doesn’t have a high pitched whine, the damage is now done and she gets very upset at the dryer and now the vac. Fam suggested making zero fuss, acting like everything was fine but she just sat and trembled for hours and I can’t have that so desensitisation it is. It’s going very slowly, took her ten minutes to decide to eat the bread on the inert dryer and this is a dog ruled by her stomach. I hate seeing her like this, she trusts me with everything but wouldn’t even leave her hideyhole for a small piece of bacon yesterday. One day I hope the hairdryer sound will have her come running for treats.