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The Delayed, Exquisite Pain of Growing Up Too Soon

Will Byers just wanted to play D&D dammit

Spoilers for the latest season of Stranger Things.

When I was thirteen, I sold most of my Star Wars figures for $1 each at a flea market. These were the original toys, the ones with vinyl capes and telescoping lightsabers and blasters that never quite fit into the character’s hands. I’d had them as long as I could remember, accumulating them over a (short) lifetime of birthdays and Christmases and special trips to Toys ‘R Us.

They would be considered vintage now. And worth substantially more than what I sold them for. Probably they were worth more than what I sold them for then. This was the early 90’s, long after the movies had left the theaters. Star Wars at that time was as dead as it’s ever been.

They sold quickly, to a middle-aged man who had no qualms asking for a deal on the whole lot, as though he was doing me a favor.

Looking back, I unintentionally conflate him with Al, the unscrupulous collector from Toy Story 2. Probably this guy wasn’t nearly so mercenary, but I can’t help feeling like I’d been taken advantage of. As though he’d somehow forced me to come to that flea market and sell off my belongings.

Did he know I would regret it one day?

I wish I could say I’d at least felt conflicted watching him scoop up my toys. But I had plans for that money. Besides, I was thirteen; my days of playing with toys were over.

I bought a couple of baseball card wax boxes, which had been the entire point of the enterprise. I have no idea if I got even a single card worth anything. Certainly nothing worth remembering. The cards are gone, anyway.

I don’t have anything from my childhood. Divorce and moves and divorce and moves steadily winnowed my belongings. Each “major life event” saw more of my things left behind, like a sea of jetsam in turbulent waters.

Eventually, it was all gone. I felt no compunction about it at the time. I was growing up, after all.

I was a dumb kid.

There is an ongoing side-plot in Stranger Things 3, wherein Will, forever on the periphery, is trying to get his friends to sit down and play D&D. But they are distracted by girls, and each time Will is rebuffed.

When he finally manages to tie down Mike and Lucas for a game (due to them being on the outs with their girls), the boys only do it to humor Will. It’s obvious they aren’t interested, they are barely paying attention, and they jump at the first chance to do anything else.

It’s basically a Dungeon Master’s worst nightmare.

Will storms out of Mike’s house and takes shelter in the homegrown, dilapidated fort behind his house. Drawings and character sheets adorn the walls; the mere sight of them sparks his rage. Will rips up the papers and tears down the fort.

His friends have moved on. They are growing up. It seems Will needs to do the same, or be left behind.

And then Things Happen, as they tend to in Hawkins, Indiana, and D&D is quickly forgotten.

I didn’t forget about it though. Once we reached the epilogue, I held out hope for a final send-off of their D&D campaign. A return to the happy days of earlier years, if only for one night.

But the show had one last horror in store.

Will gave away his D&D books.

I wanted to scream into the television to stop him. Somewhere down the line, long after he’d crossed the threshold into adulthood, he will deeply regret discarding the treasures of his youth with an intensity bordering on grief.

Nothing makes you more acutely aware of how lonely you are than trying to play D&D by yourself. It is a game that minimally requires two players: a player, and the dungeon master. Solo games are technically possible, but it’s about as thrilling as playing yourself in chess.

And that misses the point. D&D is not a game that is won. It is a communal storytelling experience that is impossible to replicate by yourself.

It wasn’t that I didn’t have friends — I was just too embarrassed to admit I was into something as nerdy as D&D (this was long before it’s recent, mainstream-approved resurgence). So instead of playing, I spent countless hours in D&D-adjacent activities: re-reading the books, drawing maps, creating characters.

Most of my time went to TSR’s Marvel Superheroes roleplaying game (often called FASERIP by adherents, based on the game system). The Marvel game married two of my biggest loves: roleplaying games, and Marvel comics.

The box set included the principal characters, but with a roster as varied as Marvel’s, it was far from complete. I spent an entire year filling in the blanks. Sitting at my drafting table, I drew the missing characters on sheets of lined 8.5 x 11 paper, colored them, and then invented their stats for play. Which I never used.

Compelled by the joy of creation and the need of the completionist, I filled an entire 2-inch binder with my creations.

I don’t know what happened to the Marvel boxed set. But I do recall the fate of all those wonderful characters.

I threw them away.

My mom was getting a divorce from my step-dad, and we were moving into my cousin’s house. I would share a small bedroom with my brother and wouldn’t have much room. On the cusp of High School, I was getting too old for pretend. Besides, it’s not like I had anyone to play with.

I cleaned out my closet, too, giving the neighbor kid several boxes of my toys, including a Millenium Falcon, X-Wing, TIE Fighter, and Ewok village.

I didn’t play with them one last time, like Andy does in Toy Story 3. I just walked away.

Once I became a working professional with disposable income, I went overboard trying to fill the action figure-shaped void in my heart. It was fun, but felt empty.

Everything is now boxed up in the basement. Ironically, I will probably sell most of it eventually.

Turns out, it wasn’t the toys that I missed.

It was the boy I was that I grieved for, so insecure, so determined to conform to what he thought he needed to be. He could’ve been a child a lot longer. He needed never grow up.

C. S. Lewis: When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.

My son is largely cut from the same cloth as me. He’s an introvert, a reader, a dreamer. The roleplaying bug bit him, too. He spends hours holed up in his room, creating stuff for games that, in all honesty, will probably never be used.

He’s fifteen. He still has all of his toys, and he plays with them sometimes. Not as often, but sometimes.

He’s in no hurry to grow up, and I’m not going to rush him. I want for him what I didn’t have. What Will Byers wanted.

Mike: We’re not kids anymore. I mean, what did you think, really? That we were never gonna get girlfriends? That we were just gonna sit in my basement all day and play games for the rest of our lives?

Will: Yeah. I guess I did. I really did.

I intend on playing games for the rest of my life.

I’m in a regular D&D group, which I found after I finally worked up the courage to ask some friends to play. Turns out, you won’t die of embarrassment if someone says no. Who knew?

I hope future seasons of Stranger Things finds the kids playing D&D. But either way, I’ll still be playing.

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