Partially Decapitated Bunny

Confession: For the last fifteen years or so, I’ve gone to sleep most nights clutching a stuffed bunny. This bunny, which once belonged to my great-grandmother, replaced an earlier bunny I’d had since I was a baby that lost its clutchability when it had to have its stuffing replaced.

Here’s the thing about the bunny: while it was once called Sarah, I have not given it any lifelike qualities, it’s not any sort of emotional support, and I’m quite capable of sleeping without it. But I’m more comfortable sleeping with it.

I fall asleep on my side, and without a buffer, I tend to curl my wrists together unnaturally and knock my elbows into one another, which can be downright painful sometimes. If I hang on to a pillow, or the bunny, or something along those lines, I’ll fall asleep with my arms and hands in a much more natural position, and I don’t wake up in pain. Although the bunny did travel with me to college, it doesn’t go on trips with me – in those cases, I make do with a spare hotel pillow or something.

The bunny is the perfect size and shape and has the perfect amount of squishiness. Most pillows I’ve found tend to be too square and/or bulky. And yeah, the bunny is old, and was never very cute to begin with, and its colors are fading, and to anyone else it probably smells a little weird, but all of these things are fine with me, because I haven’t shared my bed with anyone in a while, and I sleep better with the bunny.

But recently I have discovered a problem with the bunny that must be dealt with.

The bunny’s head is falling off.

I noticed this a few days ago when I was changing my bedsheets, and I’m not entirely sure what to do about it.

Once upon a time, the bunny had some sort of frou-frou gossamer-lace-somethingorother trim around its neck, which I ripped off because it was scratchy and annoyed me. Its neck-ish region was made of some kind of cheap satin-like material, which came apart at one point, possibly because I had ripped the trim off of the top of it years before, oh and also because we put it through the wash once. My mom or my nanie fixed it, patching the shredded satin-ish stuff with a sturdier yellow fabric that almost matched, and I went about my merry way.

But now, the bunny’s head is nearly halfway off its body, and the stuffing is kind of falling out a bit, and I think it might be beyond repair. Even if it were fixable, I sure couldn’t do it, as I am barely domestic enough to sew a button properly, and I feel beyond silly at nearly 25 years old asking someone to sew my stuffed bunny’s head back on so that I don’t accidentally complete the decapitation process in the midst of a particularly vigorous night’s sleep.

Did I mention that I can be a very active sleeper? It’s true.

I’m tempted to measure the bunny and go looking for a pillow that has about the same measurements. Because, seriously, I want to fall asleep comfortably, and I have a feeling that sleeping with a headless bunny won’t be very comfortable. Not to mention the fact that it’s more than a little weird. I’m not sure what to do.

I should add that this post was partially inspired by a post I read at The Redhead Papers the other day, and confessional courage came from a comment on the same post.