First of all, everyone needs someone to hold onto even if it is only once in a while.
Secondly, as adults, we tend to eschew teddy bears for the live version and call them boyfriends or girlfriends or spouses or kids.
But when do you become a serial-holder? A so-called teddy junkie.
I guess it's when you bounce from one teddy to the next without taking time to hug yourself.
But how many people out there take the time to hug themselves? Most that I've known, including myself, have gone from one teddy to the next; sometimes quite rapidly...
So I wonder if any of us are capable of laying down our teddies.
When I fought with my ex-husband I had girlfriends I could hold on to. When I got single, I found another man to hold on to. When neither man nor friends were available I have held onto God.
I'm starting to think we all hold something; people, hobbies, money, habits, an online existence... something that, if lost, would make it difficult for us to cope with having to live our lives.
Even when it hasn't appeared so, there is something in the situation that will qualify it as a quick bounce. A person quits living with one person and moves in with another is an obvious one. Someone quits smoking only to start exercising compulsively is considered a healthy one. Someone swears off television but starts spending hours on the computer playing online games. One teddy substituting for another teddy.
I don't know of anyone who doesn't fit this pattern of holding and substitution. Some are less obvious, but are teddies nonetheless. Breakup of a marriage and a guy restores a vintage vehicle while the woman takes up running. Teddy substitutes for the spouse they no longer have.
So, is the human race simply a collection of serial teddy holders?
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