hi, this is alice.
you know, i've recently experienced a sad but yet refreshing sensation yesterday. i still think about it, because it's sort of hard to accept. when i was younger (five or six, i can't really remember when), i had six stuffed animals that i've always slept with. i used to place them side by side on the borders of my pillow so none of them would get left out. my mother thought it was adorable, saying that i would probably make a better mother she was. i didn't believe her then, and i still don't believe her even now. i don't think that it's ever possible that i could take care of another human being other than myself. i can't cook to save my life.
i don't know if you would understand because you were not a girl. but to me, those tiny creatures were sometimes my best friends. the only true friends i had. of course it's different now that i've grown up, and i stopped playing with dolls, but i can still clearly remember how i used to hug them, name them, and sleep next to them.
my mother didn't think that i needed stuffed animals. she thought that they were a waste of space and time. but no matter what she said, i still wanted a doll. so i was so excited when one of my neighbours handed me down their old dolls. she said that she's already 'grown out' of them. and i couldn't understand how she possibly could have. i was too young to understand back then.
i used to play with them all the time. it helped me create a fictional world that was far from the reality. i was a little princess. they were princesses from other nations, or they were my subjects. either way, they were great listeners. they were my friends.
but they aren't anymore. i gave them away to the 5-year old girl next door. i told her that i've 'grown out' of them. she gave me a perplexed look, and i knew exactly what she was thinking. how could i possibly have 'grown out' of them? but all icould do was just shrug and smile at her, letting her answer the question for herself in the future.
and here's my answer to the question of the five-year old me. time changes everything. time makes spaces and cracks on where you don't want them without you noticing. time doesn't heal, it simply makes you forget the feelings, emotions and thoughts that you had in the past. and they make it so, so naturally, like a faded piece of fabrication.
so tell me noa. what have you lost and forgotten?
