All my life, I have been that guy that has had a teddy bear. I am not sure what it is, whether it is a mere comforting item, or if it serves more so as a good old reliable friend that I can count on...not sure what it is, but I like sleeping with a teddy bear. When I was younger, friends used to come over quite often, and my first and foremost priority was to make sure they did not know I slept with a teddy bear. Closet, under the extra comforter: it was my standard hiding place for it. My teddy bear was something so essential to who I was; there was an incredible intimacy that it represented. Yet, it was so far removed from the identity I defined myself through.
In the same time as my "teddy bear censorship" part of life, another thing I hated was going to the mall with my mom. Whether it be a boy's quest to achieve manhood, or the sheer negative conitations that came along with going shopping with your mommy, all I knew was that cool guys 1. did not sleep with a teddy bear and 2. did not shop with their moms. During this time, I was also too young to stay at home (according to my parents..and if you know me well, know that I had a certain phobia with being home alone for several years), so if my mom went somewhere, chances are I had no other choice but to accompany.
See the thing about malls is that they are the perfect setting to hold multiple sub-cultures and generations. Certain stores allow for certain people to feel in their own element; certain coffee shops provide certain people the proper setting for them to work or chat with a friend over a drink. Old people like to walk together, middle aged men and women like to look at things. Teens, from my experience, like to "chill". Usually in some sort of sitting area, you can often find a group of teens just "chilling". Most of the time, there is one guy, often with a Justin Bieber sort of vibe to him, with his arm around his significant-other-Miley-Cyrus girlfriend. You may also find the other guy, in some sort of cool pose...perhaps with one foot proped up on a bench, similar to a modern day Michaelangalo's "Thinking Man". The mall was a place you went to "chill".
See when you go shopping with your mom, you are stuck in a conundrum. Because, as a teen, your job in a mall is to chill. Moms, on the other hand, do not chill at malls. Furthermore, even if your mom was hip like that, the last thing a teenage boy wants to do is chill with their mom at the mall. Needless to say, going to the mall with my mom was something I dreaded the most because I feared what people would think of me. Perhaps people would get the impression that I had nothing else better to do, or, worse, that deep down, I was a momma's boy, and all the playground cred that I worked so hard to develop at school really held no validity in the real world. Going to the mall with my mom, all I ever wanted to do was leave as soon as possible in fear that someone would see me. Trust me, from first hand experience, it is hard to act cool in front of your friends when you are with your mom in the ladies department. Ive pulled it off before, but my friends were only so gullible.
Junior High was one of the worst times for me as far as trying to fit in, trying to be cool, and trying to maintain some sort of image that I believed would impress others.
In my first year at Queen's, your residence room is open to the rest of your floor, 30 some odd strangers. Your bed is the open chair for whoever, at any time. There is no privacy, not even if you just came out of the shower, and all you have on is a towel. For me, there was no place to hide my teddy bear, it remained on my bed at all times. And guess what, you realize that people do not care. That people do not care if you sleep with one or not (if anything, girls find it cute).
Two days ago, I went to the mall with my mom; the very same one that all my friends used to go to, the one I hated to be seen at in the wrong context. Not once was I scared that people would see me; not once did I try to avoid certain places that might make me more vulnerable. We ate lunch in the middle of the food court, not too far from the highschool students that were there on their lunch break. As we were leaving, we bought a 7lb lobster from the supermarket: it made me quite happy. I left the mall that day in the positive.
You look back and you realize that junior high was so long ago, that stuff like that merely does not phase you anymore. You realize that the things that consumed your life, the people that you feared the most, really do not hold any leverage on you anymore.
I wonder how many people out there today still deal with these problems. The girl who spends hours in front of the mirror before she goes out into the public, the guy who hits the gym day in and day out just so people do not think of him as scrawny anymore. Sure, we have insecurities, and sure we may not fit the mould of what we think the world wants, or what we think other people desire of us, but at the end of the day, how much of it really matters?
What I think the world needs more of are people that just dont mind being themselves. It is too easy to see people submitting to fashion, to expectations, to standards. Hey, if you like fashion, do it; if you want to be jacked, go for it. Im not saying don't do what you want to do, all I am saying is do it because you want to do it. Dont spend your whole life living for the approval of someone or something because in the end, best case scenario you gain their approval, they will quickly realize you are a sham and everything you are was simply an act. It is funny how we deal so much with insecurities, and yet the most secure thing we know is ourselves. It takes a courageous person to be themselves; it takes a bold person to stay true to who they are, knowing that the people that respect and care for them do so because they love the person he or she is. It takes a grounded individual to experience love in its most truest and sincere form.
Sure, I can still hide my teddy bear when people come over, but junior high was so long ago...
