On Becoming Real

Today, on January 12, this Bird & Bear became another year older. It was celebrated with fun & games with my family, my love for air hockey, drinks with fruends, bouquets of sharpened pencils, our 4th of 4 vision board workshops, a walk, so many lovely texts, calls & notes, shrimp tacos, gluten free treats, yoga and telling so many of you about my childhood love for The Velveteen Rabbit.

I loved this book when I was a younger. It was mostly because I really really really wanted a pet rabbit. My super cool babysitter and next door neighbors had pet bunnies and I wanted one of my own. I had a stuffed animal velveteen rabbit, just in like the book, and oh how I loved it, in hopes it would become real.

I still have my stuffed animal, and I have a quote from the book in my office.

This morning when I was up in the attic looking for something for my daughter, I tried to find it. I know thar it’s here somewhere, but I couldn’t find it.

I told my family, that maybe it had finally turned into a real rabbit, and that it was happily hopping around the wilderness.

I never got a pet rabbit in my childhood, but I do think that I’ve learned a little something about becoming real.

***Excerpt from the book***

“Real isn’t how you are made,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.’

‘Does it hurt?’ asked the Rabbit.

‘Sometimes,’ said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. ‘When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.’

‘Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,’ he asked, ‘or bit by bit?’

‘It doesn’t happen all at once,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

Thank you for being on this journey of love and becoming real. Thank you for all of the wonderful birthday wishes too.