My mother confronted me today with something I have been dreading for years. Letting go of my childhood. I'm not sure how to go about this. For years I've known this would happen, but I've always been able to put it off by saying I just didn't have time or space to deal with it.
My mom wants me to get rid of my old stuffed animals.
How do you do this? How do you choose which teddy bear stays and which teddy bear goes? Each has its own special memory about who gave it to me and when and which adventures we went on together. Each teddy bear has its story. Can I remember the stories without the bears?
In the past I've gotten away with the excuse that my husband and I don't have room in our tiny apartment for my extensive childhood collections. My argument was that my parents have tons of room in their big old house now that all the kids are gone. But I guess they'd actually like to get on with their lives and not have it look like a pair of pre-teen girls could come home from school at any minute and resume playing with their dolls.
Sigh. It's tough. I'm not really sure how I'm going to get through this challenge. I know it's time to face up to making the hard teddy bear decisions though. My mom wants her space back. And eventually I really do have to grow up.
3 comments:
Can I remember the stories without the bears?
Christine, you just got to the heart of one of the biggest demons in my life - not wanting to get rid of things like the stuffed animals from my childhood.
If I had tried really hard, I probably could have expressed just why I get so emotional about the things. But it would have taken me a few long and drawn out paragraphs.
Well, well said.
sb
This reminds my of one of my favorite songs ever, "Nancy Drew" by the band Tuscadero. Have you heard it? if not I gotta find a way to send it to you! It's about a girl going home and finding out her parents trashed all of her childhood things.
You threw out my Nancy Drew books /
My model horses from Massachusetts /
All my Barbies and all my Kens /
My stuffed animals, my childhood friends /
Just last weekend I weeded through my childhood animals too. Got from two big boxes down to one big box. So sad!
I like Tuscadero, but I've never heard that one. I'll have to look for it too.
I actually escaped the teddy bear trauma. My mom and I ran out of time. I pulled out one giant teddy bear from the top of the pile and waggled it at her and said, "Mommy, you can't get rid of me!" She said that she wondered if that would be one of the ones I wanted to keep. I told her she could just get rid of the other stuffed animals but that I couldn't stand to look through them.
What I didn't get through that my mom really wanted me to sort was my under bed storage boxes of notes passed to my best friend from grade school. I promised her "next time." Poor Mom. She suffers so at my hands!
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