No, I really wouldn't. For one thing, my parents do not believe in the institution of pets. Both of them had a cat in their family growing up, I think. My mother's cat was Patsy. She was still alive and kicking when I was old enough to remember her, too. An old, old, OLD cat. And I have no idea what my dad's cat was, but I'm fairly sure he had one. I think him not wanting a cat has something to do with the same reasons he doesn't like macaroni and cheese or tomato soup: he had it too often as a child.
(P.S: that's why I don't really eat Ramen as often as I claim to do and really unless I say that I have specifically eaten Ramen I probably have not eaten Ramen because we ate Ramen ALL THE TIME growing up and it's delicious when you're sick, or if it's beef Ramen because beef Ramen is always delicious, but when it's the only thing your little brothers eat it gets kind of old, I guess.)
And even though there is a giant, GIANT bin in the family basement back in the good old PA where we keep stuffed animals- like literally, you could fit two people under five and a half feet tall in that bin- they were split pretty evenly between my animals and the Beauty's animals and the Beast's animals. Yes, the Beast once had stuffed animals. Picture that, if you can. The Angel and the Prodigy didn't really get too far with stuffed animals- The Angel saw no point in them and the Prodigy kind of grew up faster than he was supposed to on that front. He might have like, one.
The reason we have so many stuffed animals is because they are relatively cheap (if you buy ones that are terrible quality) and because they were pretty safe to play with. Also, my brother and sister and I grew up in the middle of the Beanie Baby fad, so we were fans of the Beanie Baby franchise. I actually have, somewhere in my basement at home, The Idiot's Guide to Beanie Babies, copyright 2002 or something. It has all the Beanie Babies up to the ones made in 2002. I loved that thing so much.
Anyhow, my brother and sister would play with our Beanie Babies, and sometimes with larger or smaller stuffed animals, and what we usually did was we would construct some elaborate castle/vacation home/boathouse with our other toys, and we would set up our Beanie Babies in and around this thing we would build, and sometimes we would move them, but mostly it was us describing what was happening to them, what they were doing. Usually, I was the harbringer of plot, and the Beauty liked to pair the Beanie Babies off (and yeah, I did too, but it wasn't as big of an issue for me) and the Beast, who I only remember playing with us a few times, made sure that there was plenty of action and adventure and gallant heroes. He was usually also the villains, because sometimes the Beauty and I demanded that since he was the boy he had to be the bad guy. (This was before it had occurred to us that we could have female bad guys, like Ursula and Cruella de Vil and Medusa and the Evil Queen. Our conceptions of gender roles have since been fixed. Carry on.)
After a while, the Beast moved on to action figures. Well, he had always done right by his action figures, and he actually preferred Legos and Bionicles to playing with soft, squishy things with the Beauty and I. But regardless, he just kind of left his Beanie Babies and other stuffed animals in the bin to rot.
The Beauty and I continued these things, which we called "plays" as though they were thespian performances, until we were like, well into middle school. Or at least, I was well into middle school. She was in fifth or sixth grade. And by this point, we had actually abandoned the Beanie Babies, and also the off-brand American Girl Dolls (though it's still a ton of fun to look at the catalogs) in favor of small stuffed animals. And when I say small, I mean small. Most of them fit in the palms of our hands. There was the occasional Beanie Baby who made a guest appearance as a responsible adult. These ensuing plays, with smaller and therefore more elaborate setups and characters, are the original ideas for most of the fiction that the Beauty writes. (Don't ask her about her writing. She won't tell you anything about it and she might punch you in the face.) We had these for a long time. Most of the main characters were (by necessity and her being more interested in the plays at this point than I was) hers, and I had several side characters to whom I was entirely devoted. For instance, I had a tiny set of jungle animals that I got for Christmas from my grandmother when I was maybe seven. I kept them for a long time- still have one of them, I think. There was a lion, a tiger, an elephant, and a giraffe. The lion was my favorite; it was either originally a female lion or I tore the mane off. I named it Kiara. The tiger was named Kovu. (You have to forgive me. I'd watched The Lion King II right before getting them.) I lost the elephant for a while, and when I found her again, she became one of our principal popular girl-snobs. We named her Elephantina. (Original, right?) The giraffe had a variety of names. I still have him at home somewhere. Sometimes he was John, sometimes he was Fred- but he was always generic. I had three lions from McDonalds Happy Meals and they were Caleb and Lionel and Damian. I had a little husky dog whose name was Bolt, and I got him late in the game because only a few plays after I got him our plays just kind of... stopped.
We grew up, I suppose. In some ways, we were putting off childish things. But I kept my little animals, and they're either at home or they were important enough to come to college with me. I haven't told you about the really, really important ones yet, which is really actually what I meant to be the main point of this post.
Yes, I did just say that I meant to make a blog post introducing you to my stuffed animals.
Well, now that the cat's let out of the bag, let's go. From least important to most important:
This is Picasso. He is not a stuffed animal; he is a brass paperweight I got at a neighborhood yard sale for FREE. For the longest time he had no name because my mentality was "he is not squishy so no name for not-squishy" but then I was like, "no, he needs a name, and you can go die, mentality" and it probably took me for my word, which is why I am actually crazy. He is grand because he literally just sits on my shelf all day with the books and is like, "Dude. This is cool. I got this. Oh, you gonna eat Pringles? Chill. You gonna read a book? Chill. You gonna go to work? Chill." He's always cold and he's heavy and I love him because he's eclectic and weird.
This is Georgiana. She is in fact named for Georgiana Darcy. The reason her hands are stuck together is because she's a magnet. She lives on the magnet board hanging on my pushpin wall. She loves it there. She was actually a big player in the small stuffed animal plays I used to do with the Beauty- one of mine and hopelessly in love with Caleb, a small lion about her size. They were like the older, established teenage couple in comparison to their other characters- like the Teddy Lupin and Victoire Weasley of the next generation of Hogwarts students. "THEY WERE SNOGGING ON THE TRAIN, DAD!" Yeah. Georgiana and Caleb.
This is Hazel. I got Hazel at a Hallmark store in the University Mall in Orem like literally less than six months ago. (I think.) Hazel is in fact a Beanie Baby. My one friend got the same bunny at the same store at the same time, and we decided they were a couple, or something. And I know what you're thinking: "She's almost twenty and she's still buying Beanie Babies?" Well, no. I was making an exception. I mean, JUST LOOK AT THOSE LITTLE EYES. AND THAT LITTLE NOSE. I could not leave the store without her. She was named after another rabbit in another work of fiction called Watership Down, where the main character is in fact named Hazel- but she is also named after Hazel Grace Lancaster, from the excellent book by John Green called The Fault In Our Stars. It's number one on the New York Times bestseller list right now and you should go read it because it's ridiculously good and sad and wonderful and poignant and I cannot express all the emotions it makes me feel when I read it.
This is Wilfred. I bought him from my aunt Mary Jo's store in Ogden before it like, went out of business. I think he's like a Webkinz or something, but I definitely chucked the tags because I don't care about the internet adventures of my little German shepherd. I also added the green ribbon, as he definitely did not want to put it on himself. Wilfred is occasionally surly and wants to get lost under the bed. He's about the same size as Hazel. They like to go on adventures together.
This is Squirt. He is a sea turtle. I got him in Orlando during my choir trip over Christmas of my senior year. He was my Christmas gift to me, as going to Orlando was my parent's gift to me, and to the Beauty. He is, coincidentally, also a Webkinz, and I also threw the tag away because I do not care what shenanigans he gets up to on the internet as long as he doesn't leave the apartment and as long as he doesn't invite his friends over without asking me first. He is named after Squirt from Finding Nemo.
This is Smokewhisper. I also got her from my aunt's store in Ogden, before it like, went out of business. She is an Arabian horse, which means she's faster and cooler than other horses- cooler because when she runs in the hot Arabic peninsulas, she goes so fast that she creates a wind that keeps her cool. I stole her name for the name of a horse in the epistolary novel that Superwholockmarauder and I are writing. She is very docile and sweet and tries to mother the others, because she's the largest female stuffed animal I have. Most of them are boys. Is that weird?
This is Bingley. He is named after Mr. Charles Bingley of Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen. Do you want to know why I named him Bingley? Because he's awkward. Like Mr. Bingley. Just kidding. But not really. He has velcro hands and a Santa hat and I got him for Christmas from my grandmother and I love him to bits actually.
These last two deserve a bit of special attention, as they are my oldest and most valued friends. I love them dearly, and when I can't go to anyone else, or when I want to hug someone and I have nobody to hug, they are who I go to. They've witnessed more of my tears than anybody on this planet besides my mother, who had to deal with them a lot when I was very tiny and and less as I grew up and a lot on the phone from college to home. But I digress:
This is Edward Ferrars Rochester. He is named after Edward Ferrars, of Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen and also after Edward Fairfax Rochester of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. I received him for Christmas when I was very, very young- we were still in the house at Cherrywood Drive, which means that it was before I started school- and then I lost him in the move and did not regain him until I was about fourteen. Ever since, he has taken up a permanent location on my bed. He is a good listener and he's posed to sit so he'll actually stay upright on my bed, unlike some stuffed animals I could mention. *cough cough Bingley cough cough* He is really adorable. Look at him. LOOK at him. He's just waiting for you to tell him a story. Sometimes I do tell him stories, in quiet, in the secrets of when I'm alone and can't sleep. Those are mostly sad stories- but he likes those the best, because they tangle in the softness of his fur and comb it loose.
And finally, my boon companion and childhood friend. This is Darcy Edmund Wentworth. He was originally named Grape, but I later changed that in favor of sophistication. He is, in fact, purple. He is named for Fitzwilliam Darcy, of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen; Edmund Bertram, of Mansfield Park by Jane Austen; and Captain Wentworth, of Persuasion by Jane Austen. These are the Austen heroes I admire the most; if I had felt good about giving him a second middle name it would have been Brandon, for Colonel Brandon in Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen.
When I was almost nine years old, I watched a cartoon that gave me incredibly bad nightmares. The cartoon itself was not inappropriate, but I never saw the ending of the cartoon and it freaked me out a lot because I had no idea what was going on or what happened to the characters.
Around the same time, ants began showing up in our house every summer like clockwork. I do not like bugs of any variety whatsoever, and when the ants showed up in the room I shared with the Beauty, I began to freak out a little bit.
Anyway, I began to have a combination of nightmares of ants, marching towards my bed and crawling onto it and eating me up alive, and of the swamp monster from the cartoon, grabbing me and laughing evilly and dragging me down to the bottom of the swamp like the girl who stepped on a loaf- but at the bottom of the swamp, there were more ants, and they were bigger and had pinchier claws. It didn't help that the swamp monster looked like how I always imagined Voldemort looking- but slimier, and greener.
It was bad. I still don't like ants. Not even the little guys. They freak me the heck out. And the bigger, the worse they are. I hate them, I will do anything to avoid them, and I just don't ever want to go to Australia because bugs.
I told my mother about the nightmares- I would creep into her room late at night and cry next to her bed until she woke up and then she would tell me to pray or sing a Primary song to myself but I didn't want to wake the Beauty up so sometimes I would go down to the couch but it was worse down there because I was all alone, and the lower in the house I was, the closer I was to the ants and the swamp monster and I just did not like the way this made me feel. But I couldn't do anything about it. It wasn't medical- I always got back to sleep eventually- but I cried myself to sleep sometimes, during that time, and I was so afraid of the things my imagination was doing to me that I wasn't sure I ever wanted to dream something new again.
On my ninth birthday, I got Darcy. I fell in love with him at once.
I am a firm believer in the power of teddy bears to protect children. I think that they're like the night time Toy Story guardians of our souls. The nightmares and the monsters creep upon us, and the teddy bears rise up silently, with wooden swords, and they beat back the monsters. Someday, I want to write a book about a teddy bear who does just that. But Darcy was the first stuffed animal I ever slept with, and ever since, with the exception of a few days here and there, he has always been with me when I'm sleeping somewhere. He came with me to college, and he comes home with me over Christmas when I go back, and he went with me to Thanksgiving at Superwholockmarauder's house and he goes with me anywhere and everywhere I'll be sleeping for long periods of time.
I don't need him to sleep anymore; I can definitely sleep without him with no problems. But he still goes with me, because he's my guardian. He has the name of one of my all-time favorite literary crushes and he's purple, which is one of my three favorite colors, and he's large enough to be a small child, and he always looks like he's smiling, and I have cried more tears into him, clutching him to my chest just for the sake of something or someone to hold that didn't feel like empty air than I have into any pillow or any shoulder. Darcy, if he could talk, wouldn't ever tell you all the things I've told him- but he knows more about me than any human ever will. He is witness to my writing process, to my sleeping habits, to the way I get up and go to bed and the way I think. I hug him when I'm sad. I've used him as a weapon. My brother attempted to assassinate him by stabbing him with a pocketknife when I poured water on his bed once and I was so angry and upset that my mother had him apologize to me, and she sewed him up the same day.
Sometimes I can feel the scar over his heart, and it reminds me why I love him, why I love a bunch of pieces of furry fabric and cotton stuffing and PVC pellets and thread and plastic eyeballs so much- because they're made to have character, and then after a while they continue to have character, and they grow in the amount of character they have until they become practically a person to you. Just being with them, near them, around them- they are characters. And Darcy's character- well, to a stranger, he might just look like a smiling purple bear, but to me, he is the confidant to whom I whisper all the things I would never dare say to a human being. He is soft and squishy, just like me. He has a scar over his heart, clever stitches to keep him together, that you can't see by looking at him- just like me. He has secrets, just like me.
It might be kind of silly, or childish, to think that my stuffed animals are anything more than, well, stuffed animals. And they aren't. I entertain no Toy Story-esque delusions about my bedfellows. But the thing is- they are definitely more than stuffed animals, in my mind. They are my friends and secret-keepers, entities to whom I feel obligated to keep on living for. They aren't the only things I live for, not by a long shot- but it would be a sort of betrayal, to leave them behind. They've come with me this far. They deserve to go with me wherever I go.
And no, they're not gonna be sitting on my marriage bed. I won't do that to my future husband. Not because I care about his opinion on the animals- they are, after all, my animals- but because they'll deserve a place of honor, once I have somebody else to guard me in my sleep. They'll sit in honored places in the house- and I'll see them every day and smile. And then, someday, I'll be asleep next to my husband and I'll feel a hand on my arm and hear somebody say tearfully, "Mommy, Mommy." And I'll sit up and listen to my child cry, listen to them weep for fear that the monsters will find them. And then I'll stand up and get out of bed and walk downstairs with my child and we will have a glass of water and a kiss and then I will take them over to the place of honor, where Darcy will be sitting, and I will say, "Do you know who this is?"
And they will say, "Yes, mommy, that's Darcy," because I will have told them about Darcy, but I won't have ever let him down from his place of honor to play.
And then I will pick him up- shake the dust from his limbs, because sitting in a place of honor necessarily means dust- and I will tell my child that Darcy, whether he is really, really real or just a good teddy bear, always kept me safe from the monsters, from when I was just a little girl until always and forever. And then I will tell my child,
"The secret to having a teddy bear guardian to protect you from the monsters is that you have to love him. The more you love him, the stronger he is and the more he can protect you. And guess what? I loved him so, so much, that he already has a lot of love to protect you with- he can beat any monster you've got. So you love him, darling- you love him as hard as you can, play with him, kiss him, hug him, fall asleep clutching to him- and in return, at night when you are asleep and the monsters come creeping, he will slip from your grasp and pull out a wooden sword and fight with all the love you've given him against the demons that would snatch you away from yourself."
And my child might not understand all of it, but they would learn to.
Lately, I've felt bad about myself. I've wanted to die, I've lain awake crying, I've wondered where I'm going with my life and why do things have to happen to me and what's going to happen to me and I've just thought about the future and what it holds and yeah, I'm excited to get married and have kids and tell them about Darcy and Edward and how they're veterans of the Nightmare Wars- but I'm also terrified that I'm going to end up alone, and that nobody will ever want to love me the way I want to love someone, and that the world is just going to swallow me up in the utter hugeness of the air and the oceans and the forests and the valleys and the rivers, and I will be alone, with seven billion people, I will be so very, very alone.
And I've realized that I've outgrown the little nightmares that Darcy and his friends protected me from- I've become a disillusioned adult, someone who doesn't believe that a teddy bear has the power to protect from thoughts of death and decay and loneliness. He doesn't protect me anymore from those demons, you see. The ants and the swamp monsters are dead, but the Grim Reaper is waiting for me.
But it still holds true that love is what will protect you. You might not have any love for yourself. You might find yourself disgusting and horrible and you might wish that nobody ever had to see you ever again. But there are people who love you. My friends love me. The Nerdfighters love me. My internet friends love me. My family loves me. The Prodigy loves me. The Angel loves me. The Beauty loves me. The Beast loves me. My father loves me. My mother loves me. And God loves me.
And that love is the truest and deepest kind of love. That is the love that protects you, when not all the love you can fill a teddy bear with can do it.
That is why I still have stuffed animals. Love.
