Bring Back My Blankie

IT was two weeks ago when I noticed Blankie was gone.

I was innocently sitting at my desk, reading my roommate's diary, when a horrible chill swept up my spine. I spun around to discover that the precious piece of cloth which has rested upon my pillow for 19 years was missing. No Blankie.

I rifled through my bed, emptied my dresser drawers and checked my closet for clues three separate times. No Blankie. No Blankie. No Blankie.

I still can't believe it.

I also can't believe that my sophomore year is ending. It was only several weeks ago when I realized that I was actually in college. Until then, I had convinced myself that Harvard was an extended summer camp experience which would end eventually, whereupon I would dutifully return to high school.

I even had dreams of entering my old high school history class, and hearing my teacher rant and rave as if nothing had changed. ("Let's continue from last week, kiddos. WRITE THIS DOWN!!! France, an important country. WRITE THIS DOWN!!")

SHATTERED illusions has become the motif of the month. The illusion that Blankie and I would be together forever--cruelly shattered. The illusion that my idyllic life as a sophomore would never end--destroyed.

It's not that I shouldn't have seen it coming. I have lost Blankie several times since third grade, when my five-year-old brother--acting in vengeance against something I swear I didn't do--stole my beloved and threw him in the trash.

At the time my parents reacted to Blankie's disappearance as any well-restrained, calm and rational parents would. They bought approximately 157 different blankets/sheets/towels costing more than $2000 and tried to convince me that each was the real Blankie. But I stayed loyal and rejoiced when Blankie was found, soiled but untorn.

My brother never touched Blankie again.

My latest Blankie scare was just last September. I arrived safely at school, but my trusty fabric companion was inadvertantly left at home. (Note the passive voice.) "Mom!" I begged on the phone that night. "Send Blankie fast!"

My mother says she didn't know which was more embarrassing: telling Federal Express she was sending a mangled piece of cloth to her 18-year-old son at Harvard, or insuring it for $1500.

I also should have realized that the midpoint of my college experience was fast approaching. Last month, in order to secure a room for junior year, I participated in my first Leverett housing lottery extravaganza. (And my second.)

I have also contracted a terminal case of career anxiety. What will I do when college is over? What city do I want to live in? Who am I?

My relatives are no longer satisfied with my standard "what-I-will-do-when-I-grow-up" speech. And I'm not sure I still want to be a police officer or an acrobat.

I have begun to recognize the fact that I am officially entering the latter half of the initial phase of the beginning of the rest of my life. Granted, I don't know what this means yet, but I'll be 20 years old in the fall, and I'm not getting any younger. Why does it bother me so much that I'm beginning to sound like my parents?

Denial has long been my preferred route for dealing with my shattered illusions. When I first unpacked Blankie and put him on my pillow, my roommates thought they were living with a diseased human being. "What is it?" they asked. "A shower mat? A huge used hankerchief?" I told them it was my pride and joy.

But a few weeks ago I finally admitted that Blankie had really begun to smell. The stench in my room wasn't coming just from my roommate's rain pants left over from FOP. Maybe Blankie wouldn't have minded if I washed him just once...

But (keeping the Blankie-sophomore year metaphor running as long as humanly possible) some things lose all vitality when "washed." It's all or nothing. I keep Blankie and I stay an idealistic liberal arts major. I lose Blankie and I'm in daily communication with my pre-med advisor. There's no in-between.

Does anybody know what GPA is good enough to get into Harvard Medical School?