- I inherited my uncles' blanket, which I named Silky.
- I'm now on the third version of Silky because the others disintegrated.
When I was pregnant with my son, close friends and family would ask if I was ready to pass Silky, my childhood security blanket, on to my new baby.
The answer had two parts but was simple. First, it's a choking hazard. Second, it's mine. The answer was no.
Silky is my blanket. And not that it matters, but I'll be 40 next year, and I still need it.
Silky has been through a lot
Silky — or I guess I should say the Silkies, because I'm on version three of it — once belonged to my uncles, Michael and Stephen. But for some reason the boys didn't take to the power of Silky as I did. I don't even know if they had a name for the blankets. Maybe that's where it all went wrong?
But their loss. I loved Silky so much — and so hard — that I basically disintegrated not one but two full blankets into scraps of fabric.
That's where version three and my childhood best friend, Isa, come into the picture.
I'm 22 by then, and Silky version two is the size of a napkin — not a full cloth napkin, but the kind of small paper napkin you'd get from a concession stand. My favorite part, the taffeta ribbon that had once bordered the entire blanket, had about an inch left; the rest had been rubbed away.
Isa has known me long enough to know what Silky looked like in her prime. So, being the dear enabling gem she is, she makes me what is now known as V3, for what is to this day the best birthday present I've received.
It brings me comfort, and I have no shame about it
Isa is one of a handful of people who can impersonate the face I make when I rub Silky, gently, up and down my face or in between my fingers. I like to use that taffeta edge to tickle my eyelashes, my nose, and my lips. I will rub the edge delicately between my fingers so I can feel where the ribbon folds. Sometimes I'll hold it above my arm or leg and gently bounce it, so the edge ever so slightly dribbles against my skin. But mostly I just like to hold it. I sleep with it curled up next to my pillow so that it's easy to find in the middle of the night.
If my house were to suddenly go up in flames, I'd grab my kid, my dogs, and Silky, in that order.
I've never had any shame about Silky. As a kid I'd take it to sleepovers, and as an adult I pack it in my carry-on and take it on road trips. However, when we go camping, I never take it near the campfire. Too much to risk.
That isn't to say I haven't been given grief about having a blanket at 14, 28, 35, and so forth. But I don't care. There are worse things to use to find comfort.
And occasionally, when I'm bragging about my Silky, I meet another kindred spirit who has their own blanket. They're all choking hazards, and they all have names.
When I meet little kids with their own blankets, I tell them to hold on tight and don't let go — because Silky has been a constant comfort for as long as I can remember. I'm guessing that comfort is what helped lull me to sleep as a baby, helped me calm down and gain control of my emotions as a child, helped me feel understood as a teenager (even if by an inanimate object), and helped me feel a little bit of home when I moved to New York.
Now that I've built my own home and family, Silky is something that is just mine. In the chaos of adulthood, parenthood, work, bills, grocery lists, doctor visits, and life, Silky gives me time to slow down, to tickle my face or in between my fingers and be soothed.