When I was a baby, I had a teeny-tiny sleeping bag, cool and silky smooth, that I could hide inside. It was pale yellow and satiny on the outside and soft flannel on the inside against my skin. It was used so well, it was loved so hard the fuzziness nearly rubbed right off, only a few little pills remained.

I grew into a girl, and when I stood inside it, and pulled it up around my dusty legs in summertime it only reached my thighs, and my mom said, “You’re too big for that now.”

I remember the sadness of loss, the feel of a moment passing, of the sleeping bag no longer being sufficient to hold me, safe and hidden inside.

I folded my long bony child’s limbs down and stretched the well-loved fabric tight over my curled knees and somehow managed to squeeze myself all the way inside, barely, a time or two more. “See mum, it still fits me.”