Childhood wasn't comfortable for me, so perhaps it's no surprise that my most beloved childhood object was my comfort blanket, Blankie.
Blankie was flannel, and by the time I was old enough to remember anything, Blankie was already faded to the point where it was hard to decipher what the original printed patter on the flannel was, but it was white cloth with blue and pink somethings printed on it and a few small holes that grew as time passed. I would press the soft flannel-y surface of Blankie to my face, smell it, kiss it, and sleep with it between my cheek and the pillow folded neatly into a square of about 6 x 6 inches. Sometimes I would cling to it, or hold it in my arms, but in bed, Blankie was always with me.
Blankie slowly disintegrate over time, to the point where when I was around 12 years old, Blankie was a grayish matted clump of strips of fabric, about the size of a softball, tangled and knotted together like a tumour. I would sometimes untwist a strand of Blankie, flatten it out and somehow this would assure me that this was still Blankie although horrible and altered. Even then Blankie smelled just right and felt just right against my skin. At puberty, I kept this bundle of shredded fabric under my pillow, but sometimes I would draw out this clump of knots and thread and hold it so close. Blankie was probably my only comfort in life until I moved away from home.
Blankie had sopped up twenty years of tears when I moved out, and naturally came with me and lived under my pillow in more than one apartment. I had boys in my bed who were never the wiser that this disgusting, filthy clump of cloth - often with strands of my own long hair tangled in it - lived just under our heads, under the cushions. These boys were assholes, who would have never understood Blankie to be anything other than trash, and who never knew me or were allowed to know me well enough to have seen this vulnerable, tangled up part of me.
Then I became an actor, and there I was in front of everyone, invited to flaunt my vulnerability and hurt - hold it out for everyone to see like stigmata. I once heard an artist refer to her craft as having joined the cult of beautiful pain, and that has always struck me as true. There I was, beautiful and dying, with a cast of other beautiful dying people around me. We would have these false families, strut the stage, then end the production and our relationships and start all over again in an endless cycle of once-removed life. I was drinking too much and doing too many drugs, and numb, numb, numb. Sometimes, I would come home, dazed, intoxicated and anesthetized against in the loneliness of my life, and I would lift up my pillow and be shocked, horrified to see Blankie there, an ugly reminder of my hurt and my need for comfort. I would be angry at Blankie, angry at my need of Blankie, disgusted, but unable to rid myself of this thing. I would pick at it, maybe even pull out a piece barely hanging on and throw the piece away, then put the pillow back down to cover it, and forget all over again that Blankie was there.
I met a boy. Not like the others. Because he wasn't like the others, I didn't know what to do with him. This boy who wasn't an asshole. This boy was not of my world - he wasn't a member of the cult of beautiful pain, he had a regular job and a regular family. He was not a part of my world at all. I was pretty sure I didn't like this boy at all, but being numb, and him being persistant, he just kept coming around. I threw a huge party on New Year's Eve. I didn't bother to invite this boy to the party until the very last minute, because he wasn't part of this world of miserable people. I called him though, mostly for social decorum, and left a voice mail "saying come if you want" and assuming he wouldn't come at all. The party was intense, I was drunk and high early on. There was a Ouija board, and people were in the shower with their clothes on and people started showing up who I didn't know. Another knock, only it was the boy. The boy had never seen these friends of mine, never mind seen my drunk and high, and I was confident as I can only be when so far gone. I introduced him around and eventyally brought him into my bedroom and closed the door. The party was going on without us, more and more of the people I knew were gone, more and more strangers where showing up. In my bedroom I undressed, he undressed and I fumbled and flopped drunkenly on the bed. Somehow Blankie was expose, and the boy asked "what's this?" without disgust or horror, just curiosity. I muttered something about it being a rag that I must have dropped there while cleaning and tossed it to the floor and kicked it under the bed. We continued our groping and kissing and touching, but then the boy stopped and said he didn't want our first time to be when I was so out of it. I said I didn't care, but he did, so we stopped. Then I said I wanted the party to be over, and the boy got dressed and demanded everyone leave, and they did, and we fell asleep in my bed, Blankie on the floor below us.
The next morning, the boy stayed to help me clean up after the party, and as we filled bags with garbage, I took Blankie from the floor, so matted and tangled, held it to my nose, smelled it one last time, and tossed it in with all the rest of the trash. I glanced at the matted wad of what was formerly my Blankie, in there with all the food and garbage. I had my doubts, and I must admit, I did look away as I tied that one back shut before putting it with the other garbage bags. I even thought, for a moment that I should rip the bag open again and rescue Blankie, but I didn't, probably because that boy was there.
That boy became my boyfriend, and in the slowest thaw out in history, 7 years later, almost one month ago, I married him. I had a lot of untangling to do, first with my heart, then my gut, then my head. All that hurt, all that sadness, all those threads of what should have been, should have never been, all the holes where things were missing - they all had to come unwound.
Somewhere, in some landfill somewhere, I hope Blankie has turned back into the organic material that all new things begin from, because, for me, I feel brand new. I feel like, untangled, I live in a world of possibility for the first time. Now I have people who will comfort me, but more importantly I can comfort myself. So goodbye Blankie, wherever you are, I really don't need you anymore.
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Topic: Remnants of childhood... (Read 3955 times)