I had a shelf full of ceramic figurines that I had made throughout my childhood- there had to be 4 or 5 years worth of figurines I painted. One afternoon, when I was about 12, my new stepbrother did something that flipped the shelf off the braces and all of the figurines went flying. Some shattered, some cracked, but all were broken to some degree. My mom came and got me to let me know, but ordered me not to react. When I saw the carnage, gasped, started to say something, she dug her nails into the back of my neck to silence me. That same year, she forced me to give up 90% my books to appease her new husband’s distaste for the number of books I owned, even though I still read them over and over. I had been an only child and my books were my “friends.”
I still remember those moments vividly but don’t “feel” them anymore. What happened, instead, is that in my adult life I developed a huge aversion to getting rid of my books… I’m an unrepentant borderline book-hoarder!