I still sleep with my baby blanket. This is a fact I do not even mention to my closest friends, let alone the entire Cavalier Daily readership. But, loyal fans - just let me keep thinking that is what you truly are - I think we have reached a point where I can confide in you. His name is Sankey, and he was once a beautiful blanket bursting at the seams with pillow-like fluff, detailed with drawings of hot air balloons and bunny rabbits. In effect, he was childhood. I was that girl in kindergarten - and maybe up to sixth grade - who carried Sankey with me in my backpack, having enough social awareness to not bring him out, but lacking enough independence to part ways with my best blanket friend. Anyway, Sankey remained a loyal companion through the years, lending a shoulder - do blankets have shoulders? - to cry on when things got rough, covering for me, literally, in teenage years, and always willing to be big spoon on cuddling nights.
Now, a la "Toy Story 3" when Andy goes to college, I feel as if Sankey and I are parting ways, never to be what we once were. Just as Sankey's own stitching tears every day, my dependence on him wanes. When I feel like celebrating or if I just need a break, I have trusty friends named Jack, Daniel, Jose and Jim on which to rely. No, really though, I have four friends with those names. If I need to cover something ... wait, I am in college with my own room, so that hypothetical is null and void. But more than anything, Sankey is now a thing to hide. Back when Sankey and I were in our prime, I would hide him so my mom could never wash him; I wanted him to always be the same, to smell like home and apparently to transmit every contagious disease known to mankind.
My question now is not what Sankey means to me, but rather what to do with something that means so much, yet can never hold the same place as before. If Sankey is childhood, surely he needs retirement. But if Sankey is childhood, that also means he is an integral part of me and cannot just be tucked away and forgotten. At first I figured I would keep him for my own children, but again, like childhood, Sankey is not just something to pass off. Every child needs his own blanket experience. More importantly, Sankey has been through more combat than a Vietnam veteran, has mopped more floors than a veteran janitor and has played with more animals than a veterinarian. And that does not even include Sankey's college life. So, for fear of launching swine flu, bird flu, SARS and MRSA epidemics, no other humans and creatures alike will interact with Sankey.
Why not just let him occupy his throne forever? Well, I think my future husband would not like it if a tattered rag were always waiting for him in bed. Also, I do not think I could ever secure said husband if said tattered rag were visible at all. I could always sew Sankey into a new fabric to use for a child's baby blanket, or even a quilt for my own bed. But the only thing Home Ec. taught me in seventh grade was how improperly I wash my hands, how to burn jambalaya, and how to spell jambalaya. Therefore, I cannot sew. Trying to re-stitch Sankey would do more harm than good. There is always the option of hiring someone, but again, I would be responsible for whatever illness this poor seamstress contracts as a result.
Still, this confession and attempt to figure out what to do with Sankey is not really the problem. The real issue is my inability to let go of anything that could remotely have a symbolic purpose. I just spewed insults about Sankey, listing why he should mean nothing to me and why I should move on. But the key word there is "should." As I was lying in bed after a long night, writing this reflection, I began to stumble over words and hit the dreaded Writer's Block. Guess who was there to get me going again? Sankey. Grabbing Sankey was so subconscious that I did not even realize I did it until I wrote that I would rather celebrate with Jack, Daniel and friends. Surely, Sankey is from the generation of "Barney and Friends," but this does not mean he cannot be an everlasting presence in my life.
This is solely acceptable for Sankey, though, not the miscellaneous items lining my bookshelf and filling my floor both here and at home. That's clutter. Those wristbands from date functions I desperately wanted to get rid of at the time? Those high school notebooks I cursed every morning when my alarm rang at 6 a.m.? Those pictures of unrecognizable kindergarten classmates with whom I was forced to have play dates? These should all go. Yet I think it is just in my personality to be anxious about saying good-bye and missing out. But what if I need those atrocious and tacky shirts that don't even fit me anymore for a theme party? The shirts not fitting makes them even tackier - right?
Even if I had written a comprehensive diary, there is something to be said about materials eliciting feelings that words cannot. What also needs to be said, though, is that there will never be a way, material or verbal, to conjure up all feelings and memories of childhood. It is time, my parents will be overjoyed to hear, to finally clean my room, to clear the clutter and perhaps let it pile up again anew. At least if I start now, it will not be so dreadfully daunting when I am pushed to move on with my life and away from my parents' home. On that day, I already will be replaying college and childhood in my mind, but I will be playing the highlight reel and the blooper track with Sankey by my side.
EP's column runs biweekly Wednesdays. She can be reached at e.stonehill@cavalierdaily.com.
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