Why I Sleep With a Stuffed Bear
And why I don’t care what anyone thinks about it.
As we enter Labor Day weekend in 2021, I am quite relieved to have an extra day off. The past month has been incredibly stressful for me, with work deadlines piling up, current events being terrible, and the pandemic continuing to wreck the world well into its second year.
Right now, I am taking this weekend to de-stress and relax from all of the everything that’s going on in the world and my life. I want to tell you about one of the small things that makes me feel better: a stuffed bear.
This is not just any stuffed bear, though: it’s a panda that was given to me by my partner when we first got together. When we were fairly new as a couple and weren’t sharing a bed yet, we hit a rough patch in our lives that was causing us both a lot of stress. To help cope, she offered me one of her stuffies. I picked the panda.
My partner, being a wonderful person who knows a bit about caring for stressed-out people, had the foresight to spend a few nights sleeping with that panda before passing it to me. So, when I finally got to spend my first night cuddling it, it was covered with her scent.
That’s not as weird as it sounds, I promise. Smell is a big part of attraction for a lot of people, and having something to cuddle that smelled like her was comforting.
So, I started sleeping with the stuffed panda. It took some getting used to — I’d never slept with a stuffie as a kid, so I had no idea what to expect. However, after a few days, I got used to having something in my arms as I slept. It helped a lot.
That panda came with me after we moved out of our apartment and has stayed with us the whole of our relationship. At this point, my panda (who I have named “Panda” in a wild streak of originality) can be described as “well-loved” His stuffing has been compressed from eight years of cuddles, and his fur is a bit matted and in need of a brush. However, he is still a fantastic cuddle buddy, and I love him so much.
These days, I still sleep with Panda cuddled in my arms every night. I occasionally cuddle other stuffies — my partner has a giant squishy octopus that is a great stress reliever to hug, and a friend gave us a stuffed Plague Doctor, but Panda will always be my first cuddle buddy. He brings me comfort to hold onto every night, whether I’m cuddling with just him or holding onto my partner too.
To me, even when I’m just holding onto my panda, it’s like an extension of my partner. He started as her stuffie, so a bit of her will always be with him. He makes me happy and brings me comfort, and while some people might shame me for sleeping with a stuffie, I couldn’t care less.
If you liked this, please subscribe to my publication, Thing a Day. I publish something every day on a variety of topics, so you never know what you’re going to see!
Here are some other things I’ve written:
