"What is Real?"
“Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you."
Can I try to articulate why this book gets me so misty? I don't know if I can. But I'll try.
It's a lie. You're real because you exist. You're real because you're REAL. Duh. This is not the matrix. Is it? No, Right? No. It's not.
You are real.
The Velveteen Rabbit is not real. But it feels real.
It feels like you're only real, you only exist, if someone else cares about you enough to validate you.
You are real.
The Velveteen Rabbit is not real. But it feels real.
It feels like you're only real, you only exist, if someone else cares about you enough to validate you.
"When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.'
'Does it hurt?' asked the Rabbit.
'Sometimes,' said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. 'When you are Real you don't mind being hurt.'
Being a parent does not make you real. Being childless does not make you real. But the horse (made of SKIN?!) is right in that having children, and parenting them, and getting punched in the face because it's bedtime and "I no wan to!" HURTS. But you let them. Well, you tell them not to, but you let them in that you don't break up with them. You don't leave them because they tell you they don't love you (I'm having two-year-old troubles).
'Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,' he asked, 'or bit by bit?'
'It doesn't happen all at once,' said the Skin Horse. 'You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.”
My children love me when I'm in a dress, when I'm in yoga pants, when I'm trying to take a shower. And, to be honest, lately, I have been feeling a bit shabby. And my eye sight is quite bad now. And my joints were VERY LOOSE because of hormones.
But these things don't matter at all?
I'm not trying to be annoyingly literal. It's just that REAL sometimes feels like...it's only happening now, when I'm alone. When they are otherwise occupied. When I dressed myself in "real clothes" and went to a "real job."
This post isn't very funny, is it? It doesn't have many answers.
I guess, I'm trying to say, it's still hard, nearly five years in, to feel like this is all real. A weekday sometimes still feels wrong, in September, when I don't work ten-hour days for pennies thrown at a student loan. The wonder of a human I cooked up myself (with a helper!) let alone TWO humans, still feels uncanny.
When will it feel real?
The book is about love. Love makes you real. It's a flawed message. It should be that loving, not being loved, makes you real. Loving SOMETHING, a bunny, a person, being alone with a cup of coffee, makes you real, I guess.
Unless I'm just a glitch in the matrix.
Excerpts from― Margery Williams Bianco, The Velveteen Rabbit
'Does it hurt?' asked the Rabbit.
'Sometimes,' said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. 'When you are Real you don't mind being hurt.'
Being a parent does not make you real. Being childless does not make you real. But the horse (made of SKIN?!) is right in that having children, and parenting them, and getting punched in the face because it's bedtime and "I no wan to!" HURTS. But you let them. Well, you tell them not to, but you let them in that you don't break up with them. You don't leave them because they tell you they don't love you (I'm having two-year-old troubles).
'Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,' he asked, 'or bit by bit?'
'It doesn't happen all at once,' said the Skin Horse. 'You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.”
My children love me when I'm in a dress, when I'm in yoga pants, when I'm trying to take a shower. And, to be honest, lately, I have been feeling a bit shabby. And my eye sight is quite bad now. And my joints were VERY LOOSE because of hormones.
But these things don't matter at all?
I'm not trying to be annoyingly literal. It's just that REAL sometimes feels like...it's only happening now, when I'm alone. When they are otherwise occupied. When I dressed myself in "real clothes" and went to a "real job."
This post isn't very funny, is it? It doesn't have many answers.
I guess, I'm trying to say, it's still hard, nearly five years in, to feel like this is all real. A weekday sometimes still feels wrong, in September, when I don't work ten-hour days for pennies thrown at a student loan. The wonder of a human I cooked up myself (with a helper!) let alone TWO humans, still feels uncanny.
When will it feel real?
The book is about love. Love makes you real. It's a flawed message. It should be that loving, not being loved, makes you real. Loving SOMETHING, a bunny, a person, being alone with a cup of coffee, makes you real, I guess.
Unless I'm just a glitch in the matrix.
Excerpts from― Margery Williams Bianco, The Velveteen Rabbit
No, it is real. Really. And it's fuzzy.
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