You're my best friend

I was chatting to a friend of mine on MSN today, someone I've not spoken to for quite some time, but he thought he'd say hello. After a while we got talking about recent events. He expressed a thought that I should be around friend. I told him, I'm alright here on my own, it's nice to have my own time and spend it how I wish. Following on from that I told him that I have my best friend here with me anyway.

My best friend comes in the form of Diddy Bunny. My oldest friend. He's a teddy rabbit. I realized while chatting to this friend what a nut case I must have been as a child (and to some extent I still am).

I got Diddy Bunny when I was 5, I had a party in which I had to throw away my dummy. I was very attached to it, but I went to throw it in the bin at my childminders, and when I came back to the table the fairies had left me a present. I unwrapped it, and inside was a lovely fluffy rabbit. I called him Diddy Bunny. We called dummies diddies, and this worked very well. It was tough parting from my diddy...I remember how much I loved it, and how comforting it was.

Diddy Bunny though was then in a league of his own. He was fluffy, had sticky-up ears, an extra fluffy tail, and a tickle hole. For ages I didn't let him leave my side, and eventually his fluffy tale became less fluffy, and after a lot of nighttime cuddles his ears flopped, but to me that just made him even cuter. Ever since we've been pretty close. I've shared everything with him. Told him all my problems, and he's always offered good advice.

I remembered something I used to do when I was a kid. I grew up quite late, if I've grown up at all, and probably did this until after I left school, which is quite embarrassing, but hey, who cares? I used to tell him everything, and when I was a bit younger I believed that all my teddies were alive. I gave them all names, and was always very careful not to say anything nasty to them. I believed that they were real, and played games and had parties when I was out of the room, or when I was asleep. That was how most of them ended up on the floor in the morning. I used to pretend I was asleep to try to catch them, but I never did. They aren't stupid. They layed on my bed every night, they could tell when I was asleep and when I was awake.

I also used to use diddy bunny in the decision making process. Those were the days. Not anything major, usually something to do with a boy. Most commonly asking if they liked me or not. I was shy bean back then too, and while the answer he gave never actually made me do anything it was nice to have. When I went to sleep I'd ask Diddy Bunny a yes or no question, and go to sleep on my back, he's be on my chest and I'd cuddle him right tight. Depending whether he was on the left or right side of me when I woke up in the morning would give me my answer.

I still believe that Diddy Bunny is real. He is I suppose, it just depends on your definition of real. What makes me think this more than anything is that we have been separated for the past 2 years. When my room was decorated I had to put everything away in the loft. I thought I didn't put him up, because I couldn't bare to put him in a bin-liner. I thought when it was all done and everything was back in that he'd somehow gone...he was no where to be seen, and despite my best efforts I could not find him. I spend many evenings thinking about him, where he'd got to, what he was doing, if some other child had maybe found him and was giving the same amount of comfort to them. It never stopped me missing him though.

I was mooching around in the loft last week, trying to find my quilt of all things, and was getting hold of every bin-liner that I could and testing them out to see whether my quilt was in one. I them picked up a bag full of teddies. They were all put up there when my room was done, I knew those ones wouldn't mind too much, so they were okay to go up there, hey that way they could party all day every day right? I grabbed the bin liner and ripped it open, and there in front of me was my Diddy Bunny.

It's like we do have some extraordinary bond though. And yes, this is a teddy, I know it sounds bizarre, but he's been with me since a young age. A lot of tears and happiness have gone into him, he's as much as part of me and my life as anything else. So I believe in my heart that he's real. And my reason for believing that we do have a bond, is that he's come back to me just when I am trying to find out what I need to find out.

When I need to talk to someone he'll be there. When I need to cry he'll cry with me, and when I want to laugh he'll laugh along with me. It's the first time in a while that we'll have had the opportunity to do such things, and so it will all be good.