Instead of eating rug cheese and watching the only movie on the planet that would be better WITH Lindsay Lohan in it, I SHOULD be at Liz’s house, chatting about life and drinking wine. I made a decision though to stay in and paint my nails tonight (much to Geo’s appreciation) and try to just chillax. Do people still say “chillax“? Probs not. Oh well, I’m retro now. I’ve been all anxious for the past week. Like, not just stressed, but crazy-in-the-head anxious. I don’t know where it came from, but I just haven’t been able to shake it. Tonight, though, I’ve focused solely on myself and trying to get myself to calm down already. Hence the relationship I have forged tonight with hairy cheese and a bad movie. Not a stressor in the bunch.
You know when you’re feeling crappy, and like there’s only one thing that makes you feel better? For some it’s tea, or yoga, or a stiff cocktail. In my case, it’s my childhood blanket. It used to be vivid pinks and polka dots with Strawberry Shortcake smack dab in the middle. These days it's brownish with no discernible design of any kind, it's ripped up, torn, tied back together in some places, and could function better as a headband than an actual blanket. But it calms me down and makes me feel like I’m 5 years old again. The major problemo with that is that I actually still sleep with my blanket every night. Sexy, right? Whatevs. I scrunch it between my fingers, which lets me fidget in concentrated doses. And I also like to smell it. Not like “sniff” it, but bury my nose in it and smell it reeeeeeal good. In high school, my dad walked past my bedroom and saw me inhaling my blanket and scrunching it between my fingers, and he just like sighed and said “You look like a mental patient.”
So I tried to tone down my reliance on my blanket in college. But when I lived with Kim, she discovered my (very) dirty secret. She picked up the filthy, flimsy fabric between her thumb and pointer fingertip and sneered “What IS this?” I snatched it away from her and snarled “It’s my BLANKET. GOD!” Then I scurried off into the corner of my bed to hide away my Precious. Yes, just like that troll doll guy in Lord of the Rings. After that, Kim would laugh and laugh and laugh as I tore our apartment apart looking for my blanket that she had maliciously hidden from me. I’d find it eventually, and then take it and try and shove it in Kim’s mouth to punish her.
These days, it’s Geo I have to worry about tearing me apart from my security blanket. He’s seen it. In fact, I think KIM was the one to introduce them. He freaked out like it was a blanket made out of marriage proposals and snakes. “Oh God, that’s disgusting! You SLEEP with this?” My initial rage at his, his, nerve to insult me like that subsided quickly into shame and embarrassment. He noticed my quick descent into humiliation and said, “Well, no. I mean, like, it’s, uh, cute, um that you still sleep with your, ah, blankey”. I slowly perked up and pulled it out from the pillow I’d hidden it under. I kept pulling and pulling and pulling, and the blanket kept coming and coming and coming. I sniffled and smiled a little, and looked up at Geo and said “Heh heh…look how LONG it is!” Geo doubled over laughing and repeating like a parrot, “Look how LONG it is…look how LONG it is!” I laughed and decided not to shove the blanket into his mouth to punish HIM. Yet.
For now, my blanket is safe. Well, not “safe” in the healthy way - I can’t wash it or it will disintegrate - but “safe” in the I-Know-No-One-Will-Steal-And-Hide-It way. Although, Geo got me this super soft teddy bear, hoping it would ween me off my blanket. What he didn‘t see coming was that the blanket and bear go perfectly together. So now I’ve got a team backing me up when I feel like shizzah.
Which is definitely going to be useful tonight. I’ve already felt like a mental patient lately, so why not go all out and just
8 comments:
I remember when your "security" was a doll's apron. One night when you were at the beach it was missing and someone remembered it had been buried in the sand. Your mom and I frantically searched in the area and FOUND IT!
I had to retire mine when I got engaged. I was 29. I had (ok, HAVE, they're in the closet) a blanket and a bunny (which has one ear, is gray/brown and is threadbare and completely unrecognizable as any kind of animal).
I take them out of the closet and use them. I've comforted my kids with the blanket when we couldn't find theirs or they needed a little extra comfort. My children both have bunnies and blankets.
And I would totally still sleep with them if my husband would tolerate it. Thank you for standing up for the comfort-item-needing adults in the world. You go on with your bad self.
Grandmaman, you rock. I lost my bunny out the window of the moving car, and my dad backed up and braved the traffic to get it. These are defining moments in child-rearing - you totally win.
I am reminded of when my mother would be searching the house every day for the B&B at bedtime saying, "I can't wait til you get married and your husband can look for them." She was pretty close on that one. But I am now responsible for locating many more lovies than a mother of two should allow, because I know how important they are. And for how long.
Off to get the B&B out of the closet for a good sniff session.
V
Have no fear...Jackie and LeeAna BOTH still sleep with their ratty, LONG, filthy blankies. When Jackie was 5 or so I took it away hoping to break her thumb sucking/sniffing/fidget and she wrote me a heartbreaking plea to return it. I still shudder at the thought of that note.
Yay! I'm so excited that I'm not the only one who hasn't had the blanket-ectomy yet! w00t! Cindi, do you still have that note?!?! You could read it at her wedding...HA!
Virginia, I'm fully supportive of indulging your children in their need for their security items. I also love the image of a raggedy, unindentifiable bunny...it's like the Velveteen Rabbit! (I think. I haven't seen that movie in a long time, so I could be very, very wrong.)
And Grandmaman-Sad! I don't remember the apron! :( I can't believe you guys actually FOUND it though! See? Now if you WOULDN'T have found it, I'd have like many life-altering complexes revolving around being abandonded. And I'd always go back to the one time no one found my doll apron.
See? That's the double-edged sword of parentdom/grandparentdom. Do something awesome? I might forget it. Do something a little less than awesome? I'll DEFINITELY remember it and hold it against you forever. Hahaha..kids....what miracles.
My little (24y/o) girl still has her sniffy bunny. She recently made a new dress for it out of some scrap tie dyed material - I think she must have sneezed and blew the wisps of the original pj's off the bunny. She did leave it home when she left for Scotland - and I find myself sniffing it! It's a mysterious magic scent that is so comforting. Are memories sniffable?
AAA
Haha..."sniffy bunny". You know, AAA, they say that smell is the strongest sense we have that ties to memories, and we make the most of our olfactory memories as children. It would make sense, then that blankeys and sniffy bunnies sweep us away to memory-town like that.
I also get swarmed with memories when I smell Crayons, Play-Doh, and Lincoln Logs. Also tequila. But those memories are fuzzier, and scarier. :)
Do Lincoln Logs smell?????
Playdoh! Ahhhh! Not only smell - but the TASTE! SALTY!
AAA
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