Fluff Based Existentialism

I've never been a big fan of teddy bears, but I've had one my whole life. His name is Succotash. I know that, as a baby, I slept with him often, but that's because babies don't really get a say in who puts what in their crib. People put snakes in cribs, for god sakes. Babies are just victims of circumstance, really. I still have him, he's still in great shape, and while I don't sleep with him still, I do hold a fair amount of affection for the guy. After all, he's likely one of the single oldest things I own, so I have to feel somewhat attached to him.

So why am I writing about a teddy bear I only feel mildly attached to? Because a few days ago, I looked at him momentarily and realized I couldn't remember his name, and to me, this is an obvious sign that your childhood is dead. When you forget the name of a teddy bear, you're officially no longer a kid. And while I was able to recall it eventually, made evident by the fact that I'm using it here, it made me think about all the other things I've long since forgotten that were once important, mildly or otherwise.

So that's where we stand right now. A teddy bear nearly gave me an existential crisis.

🐷

Have you ever heard the statement, "Rediscover the child within"? It's not nearly as horrifying as it sounds. No, you don't actually have 3 children buried inside of you, operating your skeleton like a marionette, puppeteering you through your day to day life. A shame, I know. That'd be really cool. It's often used in therapy, when your therapist tells you that you should "rediscover the child within". This suggestion stems from the fact that you're a miserable shit ass adult who can't find simple joy in anything anymore, at least from their perspective. Then again, therapists kind of see everyone that way, they have to, otherwise they'd be out of a job. So they tell you to look at things you liked as a kid, hobbies that once interested you, maybe get out of the photo albums and scour over childhood memories.

What they don't realize is that a lot of children don't feel like children. How do you tell a child to rediscover the child within? I should know, I was one of those children. Certainly, I played and I watched cartoons and I ate more candy than anyone in their right mind should, but at the same time I never felt like the other kids. I always felt like it was required of me to be a bit more mature than them, that I was expected to act like a miniature adult. A lot of this probably stemmed from the fact that I wholly preferred interacting with adults moreso than my own peers, but still. And when you grow up, you stop playing with toys, at least the same kind of toys you played with as a child, and you stop doing coloring books, no matter how much the hipster adult coloring book market would like you to believe otherwise. You still have hobbies, but now they're more "adult" hobbies.

But there's nothing wrong with partaking in a hobby you had as a child as an adult. If you enjoyed, for example, building sand castles, nobody can stop you from being the best sand castle builder you can be. Sure, you might get weird looks from moms and eventually escorted off the beach entirely, but dammit you can still try, and that's what matters. The trying. Effort means a lot, guys.

But what if you had no real hobbies as a kid, or even worse, the hobbies you had as a kid all became monetized as an adult? Video gamers became streamers, artists became "content creators" and there's no such thing as a hobby anymore when really it's all just a way to capitalize on something. The longer you do something, theoretically, for money that you love, the more you'll grow to hate it. That's what people have said, anyway. I disagree. I still love writing, and I do it for a living, but I also appreciate it because it keeps me cutting my throat open in the bathtub. But I envy the people who can sew, who can make dolls, who can create plush beings and who love stuffed animals, because I can't do any and I never really liked most to begin with.

Except Succotash.

As I got older, most of my stuffed animals - unless they were media adjacent - wound up getting thrown away or given to someone else. But that single stuffed bear I just couldn't bring to give away, and for no particular reason. I never really seemed to care much for him, hell, I don't remember ever even sleeping with the thing, but I felt obligated to keep something I'd had since I'd been born. Like I owed him, or something. I like the idea of teddy bears these days (stuffed animals in general) because now I get why people have attachments to them. After a lifetime of being hurt by others, here's a being created entirely to comfort you. They'll never judge you or harm you, and I can see the appreciation in that. It's certainly nice to have at least one thing in your life that doesn't hate your goddamned guts and want to see you cry.

So to forget the name of the one thing in this world that didn't want me to hurt...the one thing in this world whose job it was to comfort me...it feels like I failed him. It feels like I lost the last part of being a child. Even though I managed to remember it, the fact that I didn't remember it instantaneously still forces me to realize that, despite feeling like a terrified little girl inside, I'm not. I'm a terrified woman. A terrified adult female.

And I don't know how to handle that. Nobody cares about terrified, lost and confused adults. Little girls, they get sympathy. Struggling women get questioned. I've been questioned enough.

🐷

Towards the end of his life, my grandfather got Alzheimers.

I take after my grandparents and inordinate amount, and it terrifies me to think what waits just 'round the bend in terms of genetics. As I've gotten older, I don't look like either one of them, but I also don't look like my parents, and never have, so thank god for that at least. But physical traits aren't always inherited, and often times health related traits are. What else could I possibly forget? I think about what it would be like to be like my grandfather, to either live in the one time period that made me happy, or not be able to remember anything whatsoever. I think, honestly, getting something like Alzheimers might be for the best for me. My entire life has been a rodeo of sadness, so if I was suddenly incapable of remembering any of that pain?....

...that would be a lucky break, honestly. And I guarantee that one day I'll be old (if I somehow manage to live that long), and I'll see Succotash sitting on my bed, and I'll not remember where he came from, or how we got there, but I'll be damned if I don't remember his name. I owe that much to him, at least, for keeping me company.

There's something sad about forgetting the names of stuffed animals you once loved as a child. As I stated, and will reiterate, I didn't love my stuffed animals as much as other kids loved theirs, but still, it hurts to realize that you've gotten so old that that sort of information, which once seemed so crucial, so absolutely necessary, no longer demonstrates enough importance to occupy space in your brain. It's the same sort of sadness that's relegated for when you finally start to get rid of toys you once took everywhere, played with everyday, couldn't live without and went nuts searching for if they got lost. This sense of finality, in a way, that an essential part of your life, a part you can never really return to where innocence was first and foremost the king, is now gone and you can only mourn the child you used to be the same way you mourn a dead pet or relative.

I think it's important to mourn past versions of yourself, I think it can be healing. But what happens when you can't even mourn "the child within" because there was no child to begin with? As I stated earlier in this post, I rarely felt like a child and more like a miniature adult, so how do you rediscover something that never really existed in your frame of reference? It's like I already have some weird form of Alzheimers, because to me, I can't remember childhood because I didn't have one. Not one worth occupying space in my memory banks anyway. But sometimes - despite that hard, uncomfortable truth - I'll come across something like Succotash and I'll feel like a child, because that's what teddy bears are, they're there to make children feel safe and loved. So for once in a blue moon, I too can "rediscover the child within", and it didn't take 1400 dollars worth of therapy.

All it took was a teddy bear with a goofy name.

🐷

When I was in elementary school, my best friend had a baby sister who was, quite literally, a baby. She was maybe a year or two old if that. One morning, I learned, after coming to school, that the reason he wasn't at school that day was because his sister had died in her crib.

As I said at the start of this, babies are merely victims of circumstance. She'd rolled over onto her stomach and suffocated. It happens. But I've always been oddly jealous of that child, because if I could've avoided all the pain that has made me into the cynical bitter bitch that I am today, you can bet your jock strap I would've taken it in a heartbeat. And I know there's people who say that the pain makes you who you are, and that's great for them who've come out stronger because of it or in spite of it, but that hasn't been the case for me. It's only made me more broken. Imagine how depressing that is, me, a 31 year old woman, jealous of a two year old who suffocated to death in her crib. That's sick. I'm not denying there's something wrong with me, I'm a horribly mentally ill person.

But maybe, just maybe, it explains a lot as well. Much like having a teddy bear makes you feel safe, a bed makes you feel comfortable. I never felt either with either. Despite Succotash's presence, I never felt "safe" in the true meaning of the word because so many people around me hurt me, and despite my bed being presumably comfy, I never felt comfortable because far too many people I trusted sat on my bed and hurt me in it. The child within is a child I don't want to recognize because she's terrified and has the mental faculties of an 11 year old. But someone has to be there for her, and everyone else failed, so I guess it's up to me, the adult version of myself, to be there for the child within.

I refuse to forget Succotash's name again. I can't let it happen, it shows a clear sign of mental downturn that I'm not prepared to give into just yet. Much like Succotash was supposed to be for me, I'm supposed to be the teddy bear for my inner child. And someday I may get Alzheimers like my grandfather, and I may forget even more of my life, and I may forget who I am...

...but I'll never forget Succotash's name again.

That's a promise.