I knew the day would come, it's just that I hadn't expected the day to come so soon. Ok, I'll be honest and say I didn't want the day to come so soon, but necessity sometimes dictates one's actions and it's the need for more room that was behind my recent decision...I'm not happy about it, despite being resigned to it.
I refer to my decision to deconstruct some of my Lego Technic sets.
My plan has always been to take them apart, sort the parts into little bags by colour, and store them away to, someday when they're old enough for such complicated Lego sets, send them to my nice @smallsteps and my nephew, @mrbonkers. I want them to have my sets and I know they'll have as much fun as I have had with them...but it was difficult to come to the decision.
My problem is that they're so large and I only have so much room...and I want more sets...so something has to give. Having them set up like I do, and adding more, isn't going to work so well.
These sets are large, one is a metre long, the Mack Anthem container truck, and the rest are at least half a metre long at least, and with all of them being somewhat fragile I can't just dump them into a box fully constructed. So, I'm taking them apart. I'm pretty sad about it, but committed.
Out of the current Lego Technic sets I have built up I'm taking apart the Mack Anthem, Volvo Hauler, Mclaren F1 car, Car transporter, Extreme 4x4 off-roader and my all-time favourite, the Land Rover Defender - The latter two are pictured in this post. It probably doesn't sound like a big deal to you but for me, a Lego guy, it's a big deal.
I'll be honest and say I'm not one hundred percent sure I'll simply pack them away; there's a site where I can download instructions to turn each of them into something altogether different and there's some appeal to that so I might do so, however all of those listed above will be deconstructed and bagged up regardless.
My plan is to take them out and get some really nice pictures of them for old-times-sake...sure, I might play with them a little too, fun is not limited to children alone right? Then I'll begin the debuildation. The Land Rover Defender took me over twenty five hours to build...it'll not take that long to deconstruct though. I think I'll put a timer on and report back with the duration of each debuildation and compare it against the initial build; it seems like a legit idea.
A couple days ago, a Hive scallywag called me a nerd for building Lego; thanks to @eveuncovered, the said scallywag. I really am when it comes to Lego and a few other things though. She didn't mean it nastily of course, and I certainly didn't take it that way, she meant it as a compliment, or so I tell myself. My answer was something like, I am comfortable with who I am, what I know and what I can do. There's freedom in that. Basically, yeah sure I'm a Lego nerd, but I'll own it. I guess it's because I'm a Lego nerd that it's been such a big decision to deconstruct several of my sets, and despite not being happy about it I'll get it done...and then buy other sets!
It'll be a sad day when these sets come apart, but I think I'll be ok with it knowing I can build them into different things and eventually my niece and nephew will be old enough to build them; it'll be nice to know they get value from the same things I did. I've kept the original boxes and construction plans for them of course because...I'm a Lego nerd.
Also, just so you know, debuildation isn't a word in the English language, I made it up. Nerds do such things you know. Right Eve?
Design and create your ideal life, don't live it by default; tomorrow isn't promised so be humble and kind - galenkp
All images in this post are my own.