I’ve been in three relationships. Now that I think back on it, these relationships started… seven years ago? I can’t even fathom the idea that I let myself feel these futile emotions. My lovers brought me to tears. Consumed my thoughts. Wasted my time. Spent my energy. But here’s the thing: My lovers never breathed, laughed, cried, or lived. They were inanimate. 

 

My first relationship: Moni, my teal stuffed monkey. 

 

I used to pace back and forth between the rooms in my house, making sure that Moni was comfortable, happy, and always by my side, living her “life” alongside mine. Disturbing thoughts of Moni being carelessly brushed underneath the couch, left to suffer, would often intrude my head causing recurring nightmares. It scared me to think that something I loved could be in agony and suffering. 

 

Whenever my mind wasn’t on schoolwork, friends, and family, it was on Moni. I would daydream about her at school and run back to her at the end of the day to make sure that she was okay. She never spoke, yet I knew we had a connection. But I had to prove this connection and love. 

 

I would host surprise parties for Moni, preparing for hours and hours on end. As I hung up streamers, hand-wrote invitations to the rest of my family members, and prepared the hors-d'oeuvres, I occasionally checked in on her to make sure that she was still tucked safely into bed. 

 

These parties helped me feel better. They proved our strong connection. I had to make sure that Moni knew I cared deeply for her, as if she even had the ability to do so. She made me feel better but also caused me much anxiety. It’s hard for a seven-year-old to show her undying love to a person, let alone an inanimate object who doesn’t exactly express love back in the same way, but I guess I was okay with that. 

 

Ah, but my second lover was different. 

 

Oh, beloved swing set. Throughout my childhood, I had spent hours in my backyard, swinging on that green swing, stretching my toes out to just touch the low tree branch, grazing the soles of my flip-flops against the grass, which in time turned into a patch of dirt. That swing set was close to my heart, to say the least. 

 

The time I spent gazing out the dining room window to admire the swing set was abundant. My parents would wonder why I spent so much time looking out of that window. I never told them because they wouldn’t understand. They wouldn’t understand the love. 

 

I would beg my dad to help me power wash all of the dirt from it. Although we maybe did it once or twice, I was satisfied. I think I had a healthier relationship with the swing set. For some reason, I didn’t have to prove my love to it the same way I had to with my stuffed animals. I was sure that it knew how much I loved it. 

 

This didn’t stop me from feeling powerful emotions for the swing set. Whenever it stormed outside, I would sympathize. It was sadness that I felt, not anxiousness this time. It was so helpless. It could not move or protect itself from the downpour. Oh, how I felt like crying. I would cringe at every lighting strike and shudder at every rumble of thunder. I resided at the window until the storm would pass. 

 

My last lover: that tree in the front yard. My tree. 

 

The one whose leaves would be a vibrant green in the summertime and turn to a brilliant orange-red in autumn. The tree whose bare winter limbs didn’t disappoint, as I knew the beautiful spring blossoms were soon on their way. The tree that caused my eyes to water and itch but that caused me to forget little things like that as well. It showed me love when it wanted to but presented its dire consequences. Was this an abusive relationship? That didn’t matter; it was my tree, and that’s all that mattered. 

 

As the years passed by, I watched this tree grow from a small tree to a fairly large one. It had a perfect, oval-like shape to it, which I would often admire. However, that soon changed. 

 

After a night of intermittent gusts of fierce winds, I looked outside my bedroom window to find that something horrific had happened. A giant branch of the tree, my tree, was on the ground. I ran to my parents crying and explained the situation. My dad looked outside but didn’t seem too unhappy about it. I was devastated. A little part of me broke. My tree. That was my tree. It seemed so misshapen that I couldn’t even bear to look at it anymore. It must have been hurting very badly. Why did this have to happen? I felt terrible. 

 

I’ve moved past and grown out of that phase of my life. I’m grateful. 

 

When I open my bed-side table cabinet, my old stuffed animals spill out. Among this pile of stuffed animals, I see the tail of the teal green monkey peeking out. I quickly shove them back in without a second thought. The same stuffed monkey that caused anxiety eventually got stuffed into a cabinet to be forgotten. 

 

When I look out of my dining room window, nothing stares back at me. We sold the swing set last year, and I was okay with that. Emotionless. 

 

My tree in the front yard has lost many, many more branches. But I don’t care anymore. It's just a tree. I still admire its beauty, but the obsession is long gone. 

 

Stuffed animals, a swing set, and a tree. These all fell prey to a girl’s unwanted love, attention, and emotion. 

 

These items defined my childhood. They were important to me because they made me feel like I had something to look forward to. These things would always be there for me, unlike people. This is why I would personify them, give them human feelings and emotions, and form relationships with them. Personification. It was a part of my childhood.