Teddy Bear
Today, I thought about throwing away some of my old teddy bears, big news I know, but it really hit home all of sudden, my childhood is gone. I am now nearly an adult with a bank account and qualifications and stuff like bills and a shopping list but I don't want to let go. My old teddies sit on the top of my wardrobe, collecting dust, but I never take them down; they are just there reminding me of more innocent and rose tinted days. They are full of memories and full of lessons.
A child plays with a teddy bear and for some they are actually unwittingly soothing. Sometimes, to get a gauge on them, a psychologist might watch a child play with a toy. Oh the things we learn from our stuffed saviours. Playing with teddy bears acted out and helped resolve issues and worries. We never realised but we really did gain more than just an over-active imagination from our furry friends. Many a worry was taken on by our Andrex puppies and bears in clothes, we needed them more than we knew. And there is the first crack in the rosy glasses.
Naivety: it protected us, shrouded us in blissful ignorance. Our problems released and chased away without us knowing. We always thought everything would be OK in the end. We never thought anything bad could happen to us. And when we were proved wrong we went back to our therapeutic toys and then reverted back. Our cheery optimism shone like a beacon and it wasn't even that long ago.
When I was in yr six I wrote in a journal for a diary. We decorated them and wrote entries in them. Mine were a bit like this blog with one distinction: naivety. I wrote about how I would 'take anything like throws at me', how I would try to 'spread laughter and joy' (the only time I succeeded at that was when I looked back at what I said, in later years). I said that war wasn't 'very nice' and that I was willing to give a second chance to an arsonist... strange I know, but hey.. I also said I was looking forward to exams!
The front of my journal was covered in fake jewels in patterns but over the years, they fell off, were chipped, the only reminder that they were there is the translucent glue they left behind; just like the bears and my childhood. Now, like the decoration on the covers, my rosé tinted glasses are cracked beyond repair, the frames chipped and missing bits like the bejewelled surface of the journal.
I will never bring myself to throw them away, at least not all of them. In this seemingly alternate world to the one I grew up in, the nights are cold and I find myself reaching to find my blanket of naivety and ignorance, only to find it greying and tatty. At heart we all children, incipient compared to the universe, craving the luxury of ignorance. But no more. Accept that loss and open your eyes. Yes, the world is different and full of things we wish we could run away from. But it is also full of beauty. Art, people, music and landscapes, places and cultures, all things we never could appreciate as children. Our childhood might be over... But our lives have only just begun.
A child plays with a teddy bear and for some they are actually unwittingly soothing. Sometimes, to get a gauge on them, a psychologist might watch a child play with a toy. Oh the things we learn from our stuffed saviours. Playing with teddy bears acted out and helped resolve issues and worries. We never realised but we really did gain more than just an over-active imagination from our furry friends. Many a worry was taken on by our Andrex puppies and bears in clothes, we needed them more than we knew. And there is the first crack in the rosy glasses.
Naivety: it protected us, shrouded us in blissful ignorance. Our problems released and chased away without us knowing. We always thought everything would be OK in the end. We never thought anything bad could happen to us. And when we were proved wrong we went back to our therapeutic toys and then reverted back. Our cheery optimism shone like a beacon and it wasn't even that long ago.
When I was in yr six I wrote in a journal for a diary. We decorated them and wrote entries in them. Mine were a bit like this blog with one distinction: naivety. I wrote about how I would 'take anything like throws at me', how I would try to 'spread laughter and joy' (the only time I succeeded at that was when I looked back at what I said, in later years). I said that war wasn't 'very nice' and that I was willing to give a second chance to an arsonist... strange I know, but hey.. I also said I was looking forward to exams!
The front of my journal was covered in fake jewels in patterns but over the years, they fell off, were chipped, the only reminder that they were there is the translucent glue they left behind; just like the bears and my childhood. Now, like the decoration on the covers, my rosé tinted glasses are cracked beyond repair, the frames chipped and missing bits like the bejewelled surface of the journal.
I will never bring myself to throw them away, at least not all of them. In this seemingly alternate world to the one I grew up in, the nights are cold and I find myself reaching to find my blanket of naivety and ignorance, only to find it greying and tatty. At heart we all children, incipient compared to the universe, craving the luxury of ignorance. But no more. Accept that loss and open your eyes. Yes, the world is different and full of things we wish we could run away from. But it is also full of beauty. Art, people, music and landscapes, places and cultures, all things we never could appreciate as children. Our childhood might be over... But our lives have only just begun.
All the hardest, coldest people you meet were once as soft as water. And that's the tragedy of living.- Iain S Thomas
M xxx
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