cotton dreams

I slept with a blankie until I was 18.

This isn't something I'm especially proud of. In fact, I spent most of middle school and high school ashamed of this fact, and spent a lot of time and energy figuring out how to best hide this from my friends. I was pretty sure I'd be a laughingstock when everyone found out their senior class president still slept with a security blanket -- the same one he'd had since birth.

Actually, it wasn't quite the same one. The first one, lovingly sewn for me by my grandma, was left at an airport after some trip when I was 3 or 4 or 5 or some age like that. I cried for days, until my grandma sent down another one, hurriedly sewn in the interim. That temp-blanket slept with me every single night of my life until I left for college. I took it to camp, I hid it in sleeping bags when I spent the night at friends -- I couldn't sleep without it.

I loved it, my blankie. I loved the way it smelled, I loved the way it felt, I loved playing with the frays and numerous holes that formed in the 15-or-so years I owned it. Every night I would carefully place it between my knees, and blankie would do his job, making sure those knees never touched when I curled up in the fetal position to sleep.

Then, when I left for college, I decided I didn't need blankie anymore. I decided the comfort I felt every night holding blankie in my arms wasn't worth the shame I'd feel every day, having to hide him from roommates, hook-ups, friends, and girlfriends. And I didn't regret that decision. In fact, I didn't give blankie a second thought.

Until tonight, that is. For whatever reason, when I pulled the covers up and closed my eyes, the first thought that ran through my head was: I wish I had my blankie back. I don't really know what that means, but I considered it significant enough to roll back out of bed and brush the digital dust off this sporadically-used blog.

I guess we all have to come to terms with becoming and adult at some point. With growing up, with change. With new stress and new circumstances. I know I don't need my blankie anymore, and now I have something else (someone else, really) I get to sleep with that provides security in a way blankie never could, but it's interesting how when life gets overwhelming, we revert back to the things that first gave us comfort.

And with that little diatribe, I'm going to sleep. Sans-blankie.