333. Squishmallows

Grace Barry shares that her okay thing some days is indulging into her childhood obsession with stuffed animals.

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

Grace Barry: I’m Grace Barry, and it’s going to be okay.  As a little kid, I was obsessed with my stuffed animals. If you grew up in the 2000s, or you knew anybody who grew up in the 2000s, you probably had a Webkinz account. I did, and I collected them obsessively. I wanted to get every last one so I could have a Webkinz army big enough to take over the world.

or, at the very least, my entire bedroom.  And then, like most kids, I hit the giant wall that was uncoolness in middle school. It wasn’t cool to have even one doll or a stuffed animal, let alone the herd I’d collected over my short time on the planet, so I got rid of them.  I did it pretty reluctantly, but I was also so consumed with the idea of going to the middle school dance, and my capris, and my sleeveless blouse, because surely everyone would fall in love with me then, right? 

Uh, spoiler alert, they didn’t.  Uh, but flash forward to college and my best friend slash roommate and I would sneak away from our stuffy dorm room in the middle of our college campus in my almost 12 year old beloved Land Rover, Meredith, may she rest in peace. Sometimes we’d just drive an hour out and back just to get away from the bustle of college life that neither of us super enjoyed and other times we’d go to Target. 

And that’s where I met Wu. Uh, Wu is a squishmallow.  She’s fluffy and adorable and purple and blue and pink and she was my first squishmallow ever.  I knew that she was in the kid’s aisle. I knew that there was a chance I’d get ridiculed for bringing home a stuffed animal with fluffy ears, but I just didn’t care because she had a little smile and two big eyes and I wanted to put her on my comfortable dorm bed to reign over our room. 

I now have  Way too many squishmallows for one person, especially an adult. I built them a little hammock to hang over my room and the big ones are on my floor. Just cute little decorations. You can’t be sad when you’re looking at a squishmallow. They have permanent smiles etched on their faces. You just can’t be sad.

It’s impossible.  squishmallows. One of my girlfriend’s first gifts to me was a squishmallow. Her family’s gift to me Squishmallows.  My brothers need to get something for my birthday or for Christmas? No worries, there’s a Squishmallow aisle that’s just full of options.  So now I have Squishmallows, just like I had Webkinz before I convinced myself it was uncool. 

Luckily, this time, having a bunch of Squishmallows is actually, in a way, cool. So I’m only a loser sometimes.  Really fun to grow up and see the things that were readily labeled uncool when we were barely double digits in age are now endorsed again, and that it’s okay to want to have an extra soft little pillow with a funky backstory and a weird name, because yes, they have those too. 

Life is hard, it’s weird, and sometimes the things that are safe haven and make us feel better come in plushy 20 packages, although sometimes, admittedly, it is more.  So that’s my okay thing. Squissmallows. They’re everywhere. Walmart, Target. I don’t know if I can drop all those names, but I will.  And you should seriously invest.