Nine Minus Nine

I didn’t know how to start writing this and I still don’t know.
I thought, perhaps I’ll roll out the definitions and the theory first-
then I’ll explain how the concept was originally introduced to me, unbeknownst to me and then how I used it later to cope…
Its all really rather sad and I don’t feel like being sad today…
But there is a story to tell…hmm…
Yesterday marked my 2600th Tuesday on the planet and typically I celebrate in some way on Tuesdays but it was more solemnly focused on just being effective.
I was and did.
This morning I was looking through the photos on my phone for one to post for today and came across a recent one from Jardines de S’Hort del Rei where I took a picture of a man behind me in a giant panda suit but he and everyone else is apparently staring at something even more interesting across the street that was just out of my view.
My sorority sister and her friend from work and I were only on that street because we’d gotten off and the first populated spot in the area and it was very early and of course at our ages we needed to find a bathroom. Of course everyone looked at me because I live in California so I obviously must be fluent in Spanish, I’m the tallest and therefore the best person to push through the crowd and I’ve been to Spain before and they hadn’t.
Its annoying and nice to be useful at the same time. I remembered that when I was in Madrid before, most places like restaurants or bars or hotels will let you use their facilities if you get something, so I was walking up a hill toward the nicest place I could see that was open and serving and en route, we happen upon the guy in the Panda Suit. My sorority sister said awl, GetSum!
GetSum was a 3 ft stuffed Panda Bear that lived with me during the Pandemic. I don’t remember now why I had ordered it originally, but it had been traveling with me on business trips prior to being locked down. As soon as that happens I started making Panda Bear Detective videos and posting them on YouTube for my friends where the bear was solving shady cases in our friend group of betrayal. I’m good for using my skills to find a way to help others feel calm. Its annoying and nice to be useful at the same time.
I believe I had found out through the internet and therapy that some adults used transitional objects or comfort objects to help soothe anxiety, kinda like a kid would need to do when their first external object, a caregiver, is away. A way to feel comforted and safe. If you had not experienced comfort from a caregiver ever, as an adult, it can be a way to give all that sentimentality inside you to something since there never was really anyone to start with.
The first transitional object I can still recall is the one I got from my son’s father. Like in a fucking Halllmark movie he won it for me at a carnival and I loved it so much, because of how I got it- it reminded me of him and when we weren’t together, I had the bear. I called it Sam. Sam went with me everywhere, for years, even after my ex had gone. Even when my son was born. Sam died- well, got destroyed and I don’t remember how now or why but I know that I was angry. Could have been at men or people in general honestly or the person who had given it to me. The objects have been replaced only by men and then another object and then another man. You never saw them at the same place at the same time either.
After we were free to leave our homes again, GetSum Panda just reminded me of being locked down. I liked being alone though, I loved not having to leave or see anyone, it was sad why, but brilliant for me. I got to talk to the person I thought that I was in love with at the time without being able to be angry that he couldn’t come be with me instead of admitting that he wouldn’t have come even if he could. A rival of his who knew he was the runner up came from Hawaii to stay with me in the lock down and I made him leave. I had the bear, I mean in my mind, the doll wasn’t diseased or trying to use me for the same reasons that I was using the doll. After a while looking at the bear let me know just how comfortable I had been alone, pretending I had what I didn’t and was a push to go outside and be with people. You can only heal the thing that makes you crazy with the thing that makes you crazy unfortunately, so I stopped traveling with it and I think around the time I moved to or from Sacramento, GetSum needed to stay behind. Sam had to die- after my ex was gone how was I going to explain to a new guy this bear on my bed and where it came from?
Couple of years ago now a coworker gave everyone on our team stuffed animals and she gave me a Raven finger puppet. I reminded her of it, she said. So I searched online for everything I could find out about the birds and actually they are pretty cool. I made an Instagram account, which still exists and I won’t delete, of the bird and its adventures on all the places I’ve traveled and sadly, I lost it recently in Ibiza. I hope it finds another good home. It was accidentally left, I don’t think I was ready to give it up, I had started taking photos at airports with it every time I traveled with a margarita pre-flight. A little ritual for myself. I may be going places alone but I’m going places. I had something to care about with me. Pitiful sure but we do what we have to do.
Because I don’t really have family, well partly anyway, I’ve been able to survive using these items for comfort. I would rather travel with a finger puppet I can put into my pocket that won’t leave or lie than some of the actual humans I know and have communicated with.
And now, going into this new life phase, all of them are gone. Sam is murdered. Getsum got left and so did Bandida, The Ravenous, Raven.
Snapping the photo was a fun weird thing that happened but the giant bear, like all of the other comfort objects, are all behind me. Even the event itself, having been photographed is in the past.
After this photo I walked confidently into the restaurant and immediately ordered an espresso. When I did I asked for the restroom of course so the girls could go. A few seated people who probably tried to do the same thing but couldn’t remember bathroom in Spanish or something popped up to get in line behind them with very relieved looks across their sweaty faces. I paid for my coffee with Euros, so that I looked like a real expert but it was easier for staff too and they looked like, ugh finally a human!
Its annoying and nice to be useful at the same time.
I guess that is how I will write then, isn’t it? Realizing that I’ve used people as comfort objects to hold onto in the place of love as well as inanimate toys. Realizing transitional objects are intended as a temporary solution until the transition is complete.
The rearview is amazing but what’s that, up ahead?
Espressos. And who doesn’t love those?