Today I had the privilege to speak for 5 minutes uninterrupted, unjudged, and accepted by my peers in an intimate space meant for personal development.

I was given a week to prepare. And I could have talked about anything I wanted.

It was actually, at the back of my mind, an opportunity to enlighten people about something that has been sitting in my mind for a while. Something about effective blaming, God, the universe, life. It was big, but I believed I could say enough in 5 minutes to ignite something.

But right at the few moments before coming online, I felt nervous and needed something to hold, to ground myself. And i saw this teddy bear we have at home for display. I touched it, and in an instant my own Taddi flashed in my mind.

My teddi bear, the teddy bear I had since I was 11, that I would not sleep without every night, the bear I brought with me in all my travels, in every major decision-making in my life. The only teddy bear I ever truly held. And the one that I lost.

And I knew, this was the appropriate story.

Because this was me.

Not an opinion, or a perspective of an idea or an argument.

This was my history, my life, what made me Me.

So this is my story:

When I was 11 years old, my mom came home from divisoria with her paninda. In a big plastic bag was a bunch of teddy bears in red that I found adorable and desired so much. But I didn't ask her to give me one, I normally would, especially when it came to toys. But I had I had this moment of understanding that, so many lonelier kids needed a teddy bear more. So I just hugged one and put it back in the bag, thinking, someday I'll have a nice teddy bear for my own too, like the lucky kids who would get them The next day, mom suddenly called me into the room and... gave me one, for whatever reason. She never gives us any of her paninda.

And it was such a special moment for me. It was a divine moment, I felt, that it was meant to be. That he was mine and I was his.

The truth is, I needed somebody. I was, at 11, dying inside - hating myself, hating the world, hating everyone in my life. Anguished and alone.

That teddy bear was my best friend. I told Taddi my secrets, my pain, my anger. See, for as young as I could remember I had been molested up until a few days before my 18th birthday. Funny, right? Growing up I knew it would devastate the people I love and shake my life down to crumbles. I didn't want to hurt anyone. I was also self-loathing that time because in my younger years, I actually liked it, not knowing it was wrong. And the shame ran deep, I couldn't even blame the person because I felt I was part of the crime. I don't believe either that anyone could understand the feeling of being in that dynamic. In that situation, as me. So I suffered in silence, for others and to punish myself.

Each time I cried I made sure my tears would fall on Taddi's eyes, so he could absorb that moment, that emotion, that memory - and keep it for me. Hold it. A testimony of my pain. A token of my childhood. Validation. That what I feel is real, that it was true, and that it mattered.

I kept him with me over the years, through ever major event in my life he was there. In all my travels I held him with me. He never missed a turning point in my life.

But for some reason, the year before I moved to the UAE, I lost track of him.

I was at a time in my life then that I was healing immensely, and I was - for some unknown reason or inkling - I was so cautious about losing Taddi that I decided to keep him safe somewhere, in some corner, or box, or secret place, that only I know of. To protect him, protect the childhood me, somehow, preserve her. For whatever reason. To always know where I came from, what I have been through and what made me, me.

Moving to the UAE was a major life decision, I was uprooting the life I had built on my own as a person that painstakingly rebuilt herself through heartbreak and found self-love in unexpected places. All of this, sacrificed, to come back to something that was not even clear or sure. What am I doing?

I needed my Taddi with me.

Weeks before our flight, I frantically searched for him. Everywhere, all corners, inside, outside, underneath, above, within...without... and... Nowhere.

Nowhere.

Taddi was nowhere.

I couldn't remember the safe place I forged in my mind to preserve everything he holds dear. I couldn't, for the life of me, remember where I put him.

This part I didn't get to share with my peers, but I anguished for days. I thrashed my bedroom closet, the drawers in every room, the boxes and bags all over the house.

Nowhere.

Taddi was just. Nowhere.

I grieved, actually.

Some days I let go, and said it's okay... and some days I grasped at the meaning he represented. this is my childhood, this is ME.

Eventually days fast forwarded to the day of our flight.

Everything I needed was packed. My favorite clothes, my drawings, my favorite watercolor set, two books, my journal... but no Taddi. An emptiness in my heart echoed all over.

So I try to make sense of it. I had to, I needed some form of closure. I lost an integral part of myself' my childhood.

While travelling to the airport, I was thinking back on the last two years leading up to this decision. How I have met these amazing people who lifted me up out of dark times, how I've grasped at my sanity, and survived, how every session in every therapy was a battle of my past and my future, how in the in-betweens I keep wanting to be my best self for my son and how at the end of it all -  I made it this far without anyone telling me what is right, or what is good for me.

And somehow, in that last two years, I don't recall ever holding Taddi, or letting my tears fall on his eyes, or talking to him at all. He was just there on my bed. Just witnessing.

And I thought about how, all the things I've put into him, were the saddest, most agonizing moments of my life. My childhood wasn't all bad, but Taddi only ever held the difficult moments, never the happy ones. And in a way, that's what he ended up representing.

The molestation, the heartbreaks, the betrayal, the abandonment, neglect and rejection.

And at that moment, in my mind was, "Do I have to bring this with me?"

"Isn't it heavy enough to go through a new chapter that promises so little?"

And I understood... Taddi was my safe space. He held me when I needed that place to be understood, to be accepted, to not be judged. To be able to feel and think freely as my true, vulnerable self.

And now he's nowhere.

Because I don't need a safe space anymore. At least, not the one that he holds for me. Because it's already filled with pain that I can't make use of anymore. Where I'm going is another quest to figure out My Truth. Who I Am. What I Want.

And the only space I'll ever need, is the one I hold within me.

Because that's the one that I've built, that I'm continuously building, a home in my heart where I don't judge myself. Where I accept myself. Where I allow myself to feel and think freely. A space tailored for me, a space where I am loved, unconditionally.

So I concluded then and there... that it was probably for the best that Taddi is nowhere to be seen or held right now. Because everything he held - it won't be useful where I'm going, it can't define the person I am trying to be and while it is all valid and true -  I don't want it to be true anymore.

I want a different narrative in my life.

And we need to lose some things from our past, regardless of how long we've had it with us, in order to make way for things that will aid us in the NOW.

And NOW.

I am okay. I am fine. I am not crying about my childhood anymore, or anguishing about breakups and betrayal or abandonment and rejection.

Right now, I just understand that's just how the world is and how people are. And no, I can't blame or thank any one person or circumstance in my life for how it all turned out.

It's just absurd.

How can you explain Life?

In our group chat for our personal development program, I shared Taddi's photo, one classmate asked, "Would I be willing to see him again?"

I said, "Yes, but not because I need him."

Because I would like to reunite with Taddi someday too of course, wherever he is, and come face to face with him without triggers or regrets and jus pure acceptance.

That this is my childhood.

This helped make me.

But it's only a fraction. And it's time is done.

The purpose is served.

And I am still evolving.

And for once, I am coming home.