Carrying things can be a tricky business. The act of carrying can range from the lightness of a feather, to the heaviness of a dead body. I believe the most difficult or the most fulfilling things to carry are not physical, but emotional. Yes, the physical weight of something can be painful or maybe even rewarding, but it doesn’t beat the task of holding onto an abstract emotion. However, sometimes you hit the jackpot. Sometimes the thing being lugged around day after day, is not solely a physical or emotional burden. Sometimes it is an object with a special story. Carrying an object that evokes some sort of feeling is the very best type of thing to carry. Those objects are the kind that shape you. Those objects become symbols.

I’ve done my fair share of carrying during my short sixteen years on this planet. I’ve carried happiness, sadness, hatred, jealously, love, longing, and countless dreams. I’ve carried ballet slippers, costumes, make-up, purses, backpacks and much more. The one important physical thing that I most vividly remember toting around everywhere is my doll. K.B. That is short for Kiara Brynne. My baby doll stands out in my mind because she has the most distinct meaning out of all the things I’ve ever held in my hands. She’s one of those special objects that has a story. She was never just a doll and she never will be.

I believe it was spring in this particular photograph. I was bundled up in my blue raincoat and I most likely had my red rubber boots on my feet. They were cut off by the photographer who was almost certainly my mother. In my arms I was clutching my sacred doll. We were clothed in matching dresses made of the same material. If she had come to life we would have been twins. This day was nothing significant, nothing vitally important to my life story, but it shows K.B. and I as we were; alike and happy.

K.B. wasn’t a burden. She wasn’t a weight bearing down on my shoulders, she was more like a tiny angel lifting me up and preparing me to fly. She was my first real friend. It sounds pathetic that a lifeless doll would be my only friend. To me though, her plastic eye’s were full of vibrant life that was very much real. I was painfully shy and my baby doll was a very good listener. She never once interrupted and she was free from the human-like tendency to judge. My imagination turned K.B. into the most morally upright and loving little human that my big brown eyes had ever witnessed.

When the neighborhood kid down the street called me a mean name or when someone stole a toy I was using I would be hysteric. I’d run to my room piled high with stuffed animals, slam the door and cry. When I was ready to express my sadness I’d sit K.B. down and explain my terrible situation. In those moments her eyes radiated sympathy. She somehow managed to calm me down. Soon enough we were playing with our cars or piecing together a puzzle with a smile on my face.

At night, if I woke up from a bad dream, or feared that a nasty monster was lurking in the dark shadows under my bed, K.B. was right there next to me and I knew I wasn’t alone. Knowing that I wasn’t alone was the best thing about my little friend. Facing the frightening world with a hand to hold was encouraging.

K.B. was glued to my hip. I was so attached to her that no one knew me as just Kiara. It was always Kiara and K.B. We were a unit or maybe a package deal. No matter if you were part of my family or some stranger on the side of the road waiting for the bus, you never found me without my doll. I took her to feed the horses, to the local playground, to the grocery store, on walks around the neighborhood, and I most definitely took her to pre-school.

Going to pre-school when you are far from being a social butterfly is probably one of the most terrifying things for a three year old to face. Besides being completely attached to my doll, I was almost inseparable from my mom. I was uncontrollably overcome with sadness when we were forced apart. K.B. was my pacifier. Pre-school was no different. When my mom left, I cried for what seemed like an eternity to my teachers. But guess who was there to comfort me? K.B.

I was allowed to carry her around throughout the whole day and this was an unusual exception because we weren’t normally allowed to bring toys from home. Luckily, my teachers saw that K.B. was not some silly little toy. No one ever said a word to me or took away my friend, I was special.

Sometimes I envisioned K.B. as a friend and sometimes as my own baby girl. I fed her, gave her bathes, tucked her in at night and made sure to say “I love you” at least once a day. I think I was born with motherly instincts or maybe I just paid close attention to my own example, but I treated that doll as if she was my little princess. I would pretend that she was myself and I was my mother. I usually did this at school due to my desperate desire to be at home engulfed in my mother’s warm arms. Whatever role needed an actress at that time, K.B. filled it. She was a versatile object that transformed into whatever my heart desired.

My young childhood, filled with fairytales and dragons and knights in shining armor, was simply magic. But the magic was not a glittering fairy, or a crowned princess adorned with jewels, it was my simplistic doll with her baby feet turned inwards and look of pure innocence in her eyes. She taught me how to use imagination, how to love, how to care, how to be a friend and most importantly how to carry something precious and never let it go. That holds true to this day. She’s still with me, but it’s no longer physical. Now she sits in a comfortable blue chair beside my bed and watches over her angel who’s spread her wings. She’s a symbol of my childhood and of a shy little girl in need of a quiet loving friend. And in the future she will be carried by a new little girl with the same big brown eyes and wide outstretched arms and I will be the photographer.