Moving On...

So, in a few days I'll be moving. I've moved several times in my life so I know how it goes. You pack everything up, sifting through it as you go, and whatever you have that no longer works for you you then give away, or get rid of in some way. Usually this process hasn't been too hard for me, but this time around was trickier than the others.

You see, when it comes to holding onto stuff from childhood I'm the one who has kept the most stuff. I have pieces ranging from about five years old and up. Both of my sisters have one, maybe two items from that time (not including things like pictures, school awards, and whatnot). I had somewhere in between seven and twelve.

Don't get me wrong, I've downsized my collection of things before, however it was usually by one or two things. This time around I got rid of several. Some were easy; they were items I received later on in childhood, and while I had fond memories of them I wasn't as attached.

There were, however, two in particular that I did have a special bond with, that I had a hard time letting go of. So I decided to compromise with myself and take pictures of them with the intent of posting about each one here. All right, here goes!

First is the Furby! This is not your newer version, but one of the old ones. She's just a little bit creepy isn't she? As she is a Statue of Liberty version she was dubbed "The Statue of Furby". Yes, creative I know. I got her at my sisters' birthday party. This was one of the years my parents decided to not only have their birthdays together, but they also decided to invite a ton of people.

I admit, whenever they had birthdays together I would get jealous. It always seemed so much more spectacular than any of my birthdays. However, I tried to take it like a champ and not get too melancholy. So it came as a huge surprise to me when the last gifts also had one for me! I was super excited. It made me feel included, which was really all I ever wanted. So we all opened them up at the same time and found we had Furbies. My older sister got a graduation one, my younger sister got a sort of speckled one, and I got the one above.

We got right to annoyed our parents with them. It was a lot of fun. Of course after the novelty wore off, my older sister got tired of hers. So then my younger sis and I annoyed her as well. We'd feed them (not real food, obviously), get them to say things, and swing them around really fast. All in all it was great fun. However, then their batteries started to die, and well... that's when they started to seem a little creepy. At least to me anyway. We realized that sometimes they wouldn't go to sleep, that their eyes would just stay open... staring at us.

So like I said, great times! We never really put batteries in them again. I did once, but then my Furby needed to be washed (which I took the batteries out for). She never worked after that. You'll notice she's missing her eyelashes. That's due to them falling out. But then she is over ten years old.

This next one is a little more complicated for me. He is much newer than my Furby was, but he represents a stuffed animal far older. This is the story:

When I was young I had a bear. I took him with me on many of my grand adventures, getting him muddy, wet, you know the drill. I even took him to a hospital event where he got a cast. His name was Teddy. Now there is a great mystery surrounding that bear. For one evening I had set him down on my bed and went to dinner. However, when I came back afterwards he was gone. I looked for him everywhere. So did my mom, but there was no sign of him. Days turned to weeks, weeks to months, and eventually I knew that wherever he was he was not coming back.

It broke my heart. He was my bestest most favorite of bears. To this day I still don't know what happened to him. This brings me to the bear above. His name is Teddy the Second. We found him one day while shopping. It was amazing. There he was, just as we were passing by. I stopped, stared, then showed him to my mom. Sure, he had clothes on, but I knew... this bear was an exact duplicate of my bear. So she got him for me, and I started a friendship with him.

He and I haven't had as many adventures, but I did perform surgery on him. He was very brave to let me do that. However, I realized that I wasn't doing him any justice by holding onto him. I knew some other child would play with him, have adventures, and love him dearly, and all without having thoughts of another bear at the same time.

Intense feelings for a stuffed animal, I know, but when you really get down to it there are lots of people who develop real attachments to their things, especially those from childhood. People also have a range for when they can let go of said things. I'm just one of those people who has taken a bit longer.

You should have seen my room when I first became an adult. I still had most of my stuffed animals throughout the years. Now I have only a few, small ones with which I have great sentimental attachment to. (I also have some anime plushies, but they're a tad different in my opinion.)

But yeah... moving on is hard. It feels like you're leaving everything you've ever known or loved behind. It doesn't have to be that way though. You don't need to keep the items to keep the memories. And you can always take a picture like I have. Speaking of pictures, I need to find that one of Tigger Tiger (he was a very special beanie animal that was much bigger than me for a good long time). I'll have to show him to you all another day.

Ta!

^-^