Too old for teddy bears

[sapphire]

So I started cleaning out my bedroom at my parents' house today, to get ready for when I move out (which may yet be a little while, but I'm getting anxious, and it doesn't hurt to be prepared). Part of that process involves deciding what to get rid of - what to throw away, what to donate. And, of course, I came across a fair number of stuffed animals. I rather horded them as a child. Even after clearing most of them out when we moved to this house right before I graduated from high school, I have at least ten left. Some of them have been chewed on by cats, most of them are dirty from being dragged around who knows where. Only a few are in donating condition.

So what do I do with the rest? It would break my heart to just throw them out - I'm sentimental like that. There's a charity nearby that will probably take them anyway, because this place truly takes anything, but I wonder what will happen to them there. I'm even keeping a few - the little Hedwig with one claw chewed off, the pair of "kissing bears" my mom bought me for Valentine's one year, both with chewed paws and ears. But I can't keep them all. Because I'm too old for teddy bears. I may still love them, but I will never use them. I don't sleep with a stuffed animal anymore, and if I did, it would be the old dog that kept me company throughout my childhood. (She is safely tucked into a box for storage.)

I don't know what the point of this is, aside from it being really hard to say goodbye to childhood. I just needed to ramble about it for a bit, I guess. At least I'm still a young twenty-something who can justify having a few scraps of childhood around (even if my justification is that Harry Potter is cool and the bears will be good for decoration around Valentine's Day).

[the Red Dragon]

Aww, I know where you're coming from. I still have the baby blanket I slept with when I was little. It used to be white...now it's sort of dust-colored. And the colored balloon pattern is really faded. Not to mention, it's full of holes and the border is tattered and ripped up. But I still keep it under my pillow.

[sapphire]

Strangely, I found it much easier to throw out old notebooks with half-written stories in them. I just gave each one a quick glance over to make sure it wasn't anything halfway decent and tossed it into the recycle pile. (I used to write everything by hand first, so there were a lot of notebooks.) I kept around three of them, because they were later writings that might actually turn into something good some day, but everything else? Zero remorse.

[Zoom]

With you both on the teddy bears and the throwing out crappy childish stories.

Last night I was pretty drunk and didn't have the wherewithal to get up to put my hair elastic away, so I feel asleep with it in my hands and it was actually really comforting. Not even that my hair elastic means anything to me personally, just because it was a thing to hold onto.

I threw out (accidentally, kind of long story but eventually they got moldy and weren't worth holding onto) all but one of my childhood stuffies; there were probably a few dozen Beanie Babies. I just held onto Scorch my little dragon which I'd had since I was six. When I'm sick or on my period I sometimes pull him out and hope my roommates don't wake me up in the morning for coffee.

Also with stories; there have been so many times that I've been cleaning out my purse and come across scribbled notes with like five words on them that were supposed to be a story, and instead of transcribing them somewhere, I'm just like screw it and I throw them out. I kind of wonder what I've tossed.

But yeah, too old for teddy bears. Something I've noticed about growing up is just swallowing and accepting discomfort and sadness. Throwing out teddy bears because they have no practical use in your life. Staying in when your friends are going out for drinks because you can't afford it. Going to class at 8 am even though you're throwing up and you have a fever because you don't think you could manage to catch up. Literally not having time to drink tea and read for a week and a half because you have so much homework, even though downtime is the way you function. Etc etc. It sucks but I guess it's a thing that has to happen. Sad though. I just feel like adulthood snuck up on me way too fast.

[sapphire]

It is strange how, no matter how old we get, it can be so comforting to fall asleep holding something (or someone).
The only reason I was able to stop sleeping with my stuffed dog is that my cat used to sleep with me, so I had her to pet while I drifted off every night.

Aww, I had a Scorch Beanie Baby! I loved that little guy.
I had tons of Beanie Babies... The stuffed dog I used to sleep with was the large-sized Honey. I'm pretty sure I donated all the others when we moved out of my childhood home. (I may have kept the Princess Diana bear - she was a gift, I think for my First Communion. But if I did keep her, she's in storage with Honey.)

For stories, I try to keep anything that sounds cool. I have a Word doc saved on my computer with random cool scraps of things I've thought up. But most of my old stuff, I just threw out. Nothing worth keeping there. I also typed things up to save them all the time in my younger days, so it's probably mostly on my computer somewhere anyway.

Growing up is hard.
But yeah, there's a lot of shedding of selfishness, I think, and a lot of accepting your own selfishness, too. Like the not going out for drinks thing - you're being selfish in depriving your friends of your company, but you're also not because you know you have responsibilities that come first - like to classmates and teachers to perform well, to employers to work hard, to landlords to pay your rent.
One of my friends and I were discussing whether we wanted children or not, and when I said definitely not, because I'm too selfish to devote all my time to kids (at least not yet), she pointed out that that was not actually that selfish. I know I can't devote myself to someone else yet, but I'm almost being selfless in not having kids, simply because I know I wouldn't be the best mom yet. Better to wait than to have kids too early and not be able to care for them as well. Does that make sense? It was a late-night conversation.
And as for going to class sick, I know exactly where you're coming from there. My job requires us to make up any time that we call in sick for, so if you miss even one day, that's eight hours you have to come in later, tacking on to your existing shifts or giving up a day off. No one has the time (or sanity) to spare for that, so people just come to work when they're sick. One of my coworkers had laryngitis and could barely talk, and she still came to work. And we work in a call center, so we're on the phone all day.

It's strange how, when we're kids, all we want is to grow up. And then we get there, and it happened way too fast. And at the same time, it doesn't feel like it's happened quite yet.

[A Mask Among Many]

I honestly don't think I'll ever grow up.

I have about 20 stuffed animals ranging from when I was born to when I was about five. There's a blanket sitting, folded, next to my bed because I don't use it, but still want it nearby. I'll never get rid of most of the stuffed buddies sitting in my corner. Bandit is the one I hold at night, Snakey is too long, and Usa too well loved. (OO-sah b/c he has USA on his chest, but I didn't get it when I was three... )

I keep most of my old stuff so I can go back to it for ideas if I'm stuck. Other than that, I don't usually throw things away unless absolutely necessary.

Kinda weird, I am also. I have kinda two brains...

One is my normal self, it acts, thinks, studies, and does all the normal person stuff. Then I have a kind of 'second' brain that only appears when I'm being reflective or thoughtful, but is completely different from my normal mind. I guess the simplest way to put it is I'm able to view myself as if I were another person, but with better knowledge than any other person could have.

The really weird part is when I make judgments about myself. Similar to the one up above. "I honestly don't think I'll ever grow up," is one of those judgments mainly because I don't want to grow up, but I made that judgment outside of myself by looking at myself almost without bias. It doesn't happen often, but it's a really weird sensation when it happens. I also get a kind of "third person view" of my own body in my head at the same time.

Anyway, after that bit of oddity...

I like being a kid. As my parents say, "You aren't out of diapers until you're at least 30."

[sapphire]

There is nothing wrong with holding on to beloved childhood objects. I still have the ones that are particularly precious. I just tend to get sentimental over things, so it's hard for me even to give up the ones I barely used, even though I've hardly even glanced at them for years.

There are many ways in which I will never grow up, either. I still "play pretend" in that I often act out scenes from my stories, placing myself as one of the characters. I justify that it helps me figure out the dialogue - which it does - but it's also just kind of fun. And when I'm walking down the street, or in the shower, or just doing anything that doesn't require a lot of concentration, I'm usually drifting off in a fantasy world.

"I'm able to view myself as if I were another person, but with better knowledge than any other person could have." That sounds like self-awareness to me. Knowing yourself, and also knowing how other people are likely to see you. It's a gift, and invaluable for a writer, if only because understanding yourself is the first step in understanding your own writing.

I can do that sometimes, more often now than I used to, but it's definitely a skill I strengthened in college. I don't think I was very good at it in high school.

[Zoom]

Oh my God playing pretend. Chrome and I do this bit where we'll talk about our fictitious, 40-something lives.

Oh and self-awareness: I think it's also super important because recognizing yourself in relation to OTHER PEOPLE helps you write characters that aren't just yourself. I remember realizing that this one chick who came into the shop just plain didn't like me, because I was excitable and weird and honest, and I wasn't 'playing the game'. This was like the first time I really realized that there are worldviews out there besides my own. It helps socially as well, in like at least two different ways.

[sapphire]

College really knocked my worldview around, honestly. I grew up extremely sheltered - like, swearing was shocking to me. And honestly, I have no problem with the way I was raised. It was good for me. But so was getting out of that, and learning about the world. I got to college and suddenly smoking is a really common thing, both tobacco and marijuana. And drinking. And sex. And people unabashedly talked about those things. I went through all of high school and a year and a half of college before anyone offered me any type of drugs, and I think they were offered to me at that point because I had loosened up my worldview. In high school, I would have been judgy about it.
One of my assignments in a writing class my junior year of college was to "write about a character who is drunk, high, or otherwise under the influence of some kind of drug, based on your experience." I had to write about being on Vicodin after I got my wisdom teeth removed because I have zero other experiences with that stuff, but it was absolutely fascinating seeing what everyone else wrote. We had to read them aloud and the class would guess which drug the character had taken.

I've always felt this kind of disconnect from other people - I was never sure if they even really noticed me. Then I made a couple of really great friends my senior year of college, and one of them was closer to some of the other writing majors, so she would tell me some of the things they talked about. And apparently I was sometimes a topic of conversation. That completely blew my mind. I really hadn't thought that they would remember my existence when I wasn't in the room.

So yeah, college taught me a lot about writing and life, and those things connect really well. And I like myself so much better now than I used to, because I understand myself better. It is amazing how much that helps with writing. Now, I can see that the main character in my novel has so many traits that are mine, too, and many of them are negative, and that's okay. Because she's also very definitely not me. I, for example, have never tried to kill anyone because they got in my way.

[A Mask Among Many]

"Playing pretend..." ............... Simply the most genius idea ever. EVER. Thank you so much! like, I think that might have solved a problem I was just coming to in my Histogram story, which I've recently started working on a ton.

Anyway, I've been rather sheltered, but not to the point you were Saph. Just most of that stuff has been remote for me. I like myself and my ideas as well, and I think that's the main reason I like writing so much. Just the transcription and delineation of Ideas from my head to paper is something I enjoy.

Sharing them isn't so bad either. Anyway, I think most of my main characters have traits that I would like to have, but haven't quite attained. Both Eli and Jacob from my Histogram story are both such characters. I wish I had Naveras' perception, or Steinradt's ease of action. But I don't, so I kind-of live vicariously through them. These are lives that I'd like to live, but haven't had a chance to.

Something I don't know if others do is put themselves in other peoples' heads. Like, do you ever wonder just what's going through someone else's head as they're walking through the street? Like, the woman on the cell phone holding the Victoria's Secret bag. Is she calling her husband? Is she receiving a call from work? Why is her face so lined? What's with all the piercings mixed with the pantsuit?

Just stuff like that. Then I take it, and sort of imagine a life for her. Like, four kids, a nagging husband, and she has to work to get away for a bit. It's too much for her, but she makes do, and their family is pretty well off. Right now, she's headed to pick up her daughter from "that idiotic store" Spencer's. Her daughter is about 15 and is doing well in school. Her son, who is at Spencer's as well, is completely neutral about school and everything to do with it. He enjoys video games, but only as a passing thing. They don't provide too much of a challenge, so he loses interest rather easily.

That sort of thing. I do it all the time while on long car trips or just sitting and thinking.

[sapphire]

(Late response is late. Zoom's post reminded me of this one.)

Glad the pretending thing helps, Mask! It's been my go-to strategy when I get stuck since I was in middle school. And probably before that, unconsciously.

I feel like my childhood was both very sheltered and very free, in different ways. I had no exposure to drugs, etc., until middle school, and even then it was totally remote. I remember being confused in sixth grade because a classmate was suspended for selling pot and I didn't know what that was. But then I was also exposed to many, many books, so I knew a ton about other things. My parents were never afraid to let me read about magic - when my mom and I read books together, she made sure I knew that wasn't real, but she let me be exposed to the idea of magic. My parents only drew the line at a book with the main characters practicing Wicca. (Though I must admit, I read the series anyway - I just kept them at school and read between classes.)

I write characters with traits I wish I had, too. Most of my main characters are much stronger than me in some ways, but weaker in others. They do things I wish I could. It's nice to live vicariously through them.

For a writer, I feel like I have a shocking lack of imagination about random people on the street. If I really think about it, I can come up with a story for them, but I'm usually so lost in my own head that I barely notice them. I tend to spend more time making people up than imagining stories for people around me.