Its gaping hole is a reminder

There is a hole where the eyes, nose, and mouth would be. Instead, there is a pink void. I fill the void with a two-sided oval form. On one side are ripples of shiny blue fabric. At the top is a collection of blue, silver, and clear beads. Between the ripples is a pink felt tongue with a clear bead dripping from the tip. On the other side is a mound of green fur, matching green pom-poms, and red-rimmed googly eyes. A pink teddy bear without a face. And faces that can be inserted into the bear.

The pink teddy bear with interchangeable faces, weighted with beans, is heavy and cuddly. Its gaping hole is a reminder of the experience of an emotional void and the faces that fill it, a reminder of the attempt to understand, to explain, to tell you how I feel. 

It is an odd feeling to describe. More accurately, it is an odd inability to describe. In the beginning, there was a canyon between me, my experiences, and how I felt. I would look across the expanse and could barely make out what was on the other side. 

Sometimes I would make up a feeling, a feeling I thought other people might feel because I couldn't identify my own. How do I explain to you that traversing that canyon, making it smaller, building a swinging bridge to the other side was done with love and care and for my future self? How do I explain how hard it was?

On the outside, I was going to class, teaching, grading, writing, making while an interior self was on a perilous journey facing anger, fear, intense hyper vigilance, and chronic fatigue. I was traversing the inner landscape where monsters hid around every corner, threatening me with imminent danger while my body collapsed on the bed trying to convince itself it was safe.