Christmas puppy, Dino, Duke and Polar Bear.
I use to sleep with all 4 of these guys growing up.
Christmas puppy when I was a baby,
Dino the dinosaur elementary school years,
Duke going into middle school
&
Polar bear throughout college.
I couldn't go to sleep if they weren't with me. My parents would have to turn the car around if I left one of them at a hotel,grandparents house, or in some bizzare place. I don't know what it was about stuffed animals but they made me feel so safe. I had to be holding onto them so tightly when I would curl up in bed at night.
I'm 24 now about to turn 25 and I don't have a stuffed animal anymore. I know my big Polar Bear is somewhere in my house, but I don't need him like I use to.
Now I just grab onto my make-shift body pillow even though I have a pink felt body pillow that I ignore on the end of my bed.
The only reason I bought the pink body pillow is because when I was a freshman going into college my roommate and I decided to decorate our room PINK & GREEN. I saw the body pillow at Target and threw it in the basket only because it was pink.
I never once slept with it.
It was big and awkward and it would usually end up on the floor when I would toss and turn at night. I still took the body pillow with me to school all 4 years of college. When I didn't use, someone else would.
When my boyfriend was in middle school he was on vacation with his entire family. Grandparents, Uncles, Aunts, and cousins. They had stopped in this little country store to take a bathroom break, eat, and get back on the road. With all those people in 3 different cars it wasn't hard to leave someone behind. That someone was Fred. Fred had lagged behind and didn't realize his entire family had left him. His parents assumed he was in the other car and the other 2 cars assumed he was with his parents. After about 15minutes they realized Fred was not in the car and turned around. When they pulled up Fred was sitting outside the store crying. His parents felt TERRIBLE. Everyone else was laughing at him. To make up for "forgetting Fred" his mom went inside the store and bought him a COCA-COLA BODY PILLOW.
Fred has slept with the Coca-Cola body pillow every night since then. It's his "stuffed animal."
I liked his body pillow better than my pink body pillow. His was actually a pillow that felt cool on my skin when I would sleep at night. Mine was felt material and annoying. Our sleeping routine is that I'm lucky to get body pillow for a few minutes. Somehow Fred will weasle the pillow out of my arms, roll over, and fall into a deep slumber. He has to have it. If his house was on fire, his body pillow would be the first thing he'd grab.
Tonight I received a terrible text from Fred:
"Cooley ate my body pillow."
((Cooley is his room mate's dog))
I replied with,
"Oh my god, are you going to be okay?"
He said,
"I don't know yet, I'm still in a state of shock."
Have you had something that you've held onto for a long time?
R.I.P. Coca-Cola Body Pillow
