... it was not a polar bear. It was, in fact, an adorable little Teenie Beanie Baby koala.
He went by the name of Mel, according to the name tag. Five-year-old me was horrified at the moniker, clearly under the impression that no self-respecting marsupial would ever adopt such a strange-sounding name. So I chose a different name for him instead — Koala.
And Koala he stayed, for years and years. I carried him around with me almost everywhere I went throughout my elementary school career, and my friends and I would narrate his travels along the way. Any new friend I met was immediately introduced to Koala, and soon he would find his own companions by way of other stuffed animals, whether their filling be plastic beans or synthetic fibers. He had a little home, a sleeping bag, a hand-sewn lab coat, even his own Duel Monsters deck. And I still remember giving him baths, rubbing him gently down with my favorite shampoo and body wash in order to make him as clean and nice-smelling as possible.
(Once, my friend tried to get Koala extra clean and scrubbed him with a toothbrush. To this day, I have not forgiven her for this transgression.)
So he had a good life, but it wasn't meant to last forever. Because Koala was a tiny little thing, he tended to get lost in the weirdest places — inside my pillowcase, buried deep within the couch, on top of the highest and dustiest cabinets in my house. During those periods when he was gone and I'd not yet found his latest hiding spot, my friends and I started writing them off as Koala's vacations (he was particularly partial to the Bahamas). But by the end of the fifth grade, one of Koala's brief respites to the Bahamas had stretched into perhaps a permanent holiday. I tore through my home looking for him, but after weeks of searching finally gave up. And so it appeared that he would stay in the Bahamas forever, away from the love and adoration of a ten-year-old girl. I was upset that my dear companion had gone missing, to be sure. But then I started feeling that just maybe it was high time to let him go. So I did; I forgot about him, and went about with the trials and tribulations of my preteen years.
The story would have ended there, if I hadn't become hopelessly addicted to eBay sometime during my junior year. I bought all sorts of weird things, most of which are still scattered haphazardly around my room. A set of hematite stones. Some crappy earrings. An old pincushion, shaped like a stiletto heel. A pink violin. It was only a matter of time before I thought to maybe search for Teenie Beanie Babies, and lo and behold, baby Mels were calling from every corner of the online auction site. I bought one, of course, and he arrived at my home a few days later.
This new Koala isn't exactly like the old one. His face is sort of squashed, his body's a little too fat, and he's not nearly as dirty as my companion of yesteryear once was. But I'm working on it. He comes with me whenever I have space in my purse, and even though his own dueling deck has long since been relegated to storage space, he seems to be getting along just fine.
I'm heading up to Harvard as a freshman in three weeks, and Koala's coming with me. I know nothing about what my life will be like, except that it'll be vastly different from the one I'm living now. But I won't be alone. My tiny little koala will keep me company, and this blog — which will be less Koala-centered than this first entry might suggest, I promise — will hopefully help me share all the fun and misery I experience along the way.
So ... welcome! Follow me if you'd like (I'd love it if you did), and so long until my next post!
