Peel, Stick, Smile

Stickers. Peel, stick, stand back and smile.

I love them.

I don't remember having a particular affinity for them as a child. They were a part of the repertoire of craft supplies most kids get their hands on between kindergarten and camp. Construction paper, pipe cleaners, string, glue, and...stickers.

As a jack of all things artistic, and truly a master of none, I dabble in arts and crafts when a particular need arises, more so out of a need to create. I get invested in the end result, which is usually amateurish anyway, more than in a particular process or set of supplies. But stickers have been one of those crafty things that have stuck around for me: as a result, I’ve maintained a healthy collection over the years. I love running out of a sheet or two because it means I get to replenish make a coveted trip to the dollar store to replenish my stash.

My ugly magnetic calendar from Mr. Lube became a cute, puppy-covered mini planner.

My best friend’s first wedding anniversary card opened to an adorable sticker-framed picture.

Planning my sister’s baby shower? I just needed a giant board and a bowlful of sticker letters for a baby name bingo game. (The winning name, by the way, was Dfmannax. I am pleased to report that is not the name of my niece.)

Peel. University knocked the wind out of me, peeling me away from the self I used to know, like a delicate stickman sticker would be peeled off its backing sheet, hoping to God not to get a limb torn off in the process. I graduated with a fresh degree and a dead soul, rank with numbness and a strange combination of fear and apathy. But I had to make something of my twenties, to turn my debt into a career—and to hurry, because being twenty-one-and-a-half means you're practically out of time.

I never quite figured out where my depression came from, but my leading theory is that it was the result of unresolved physical and mental health issues, being a little behind in my preparation for the adult world, and accumulating a bit of academic burnout. All I knew was that something died in me at the flip of a switch in my fourth year. I lost interest in friends, in—well—interests, and in myself. Most questions in my life were answered with retreat. I no longer cared for the crafty resourcefulness I had found in my youth.

I was a stranger to myself. The heart that I had counted on so much to connect and give meaning to my world was now as lifeless as a cement brick. I felt nothing. Consequently, I wanted nothing, and that vacuumed out the sense of meaning that’s supposed to be fuel for pursuing your life’s mission. I had no love: not for myself, nor for others, nor for any sort of vision for my life. All I felt was indifference. And because I knew, at least philosophically, that this was no way to live, I began to feel that life and I had some compatibility issues.

Once in a while, however, my cement heart would feel an old and unfamiliar twinge: when the opportunity arose, I still liked giving gifts. I liked them to be wrapped prettily and to come with cards full of colour. This seemed to fly in stark contrast to my lack of interest in relationships in general, and I worried sometimes that my spontaneous enthusiasm was insincere. But if this darker, unfamiliar territory was to be my home, I owed it to myself to look up to the light when it acquiesced to appear.

And what did I always have handy, to make these bestowments beautiful? You guessed it: stickers.

Stick. And so I stuck away, filling cards with three dimensional cutouts of balloons and beach balls, all the while my depression stuck to me like a bar code begging for Goo Gone. Stickers acted like like a thread into my past, into the childhood where the world made sense, and I made sense, and feeling purposeful came as easily as throwing myself into the next task. Sealing an envelope with a goofy emoji brought me right back to biology class, where I was trying not to colour the intestines into the lungs. Or I was fumbling with paper mache at camp and covering the missed spots with construction paper. I was back in grade school, making a poster of "My Dream Career," complete with a trendy colour scheme and pictures of real-live ballerinas.

I do not believe that the inner places where we found meaning and joy as a child change as we age; I believe that we simply build more versions of ourselves around them, and they’re simply at the core. Perhaps we just have to weave through all the layers of ourselves to find that core again.

In my case, my layers had solidified. I needed a lot more than weaving to get through. But our hearts long to surface, and my peeling and sticking gave mine a way to safely tap a few holes in the concrete.

It took a long time for me to relearn to connect to life, and to enjoyment, and love, and purpose. Truth be told, I still feel like I’m not quite home, but I’ve been an expat here for years, and I’ve made friends with the locals. Every time I open my pink multi-slotted organizer for my stickers, another trace of the old me, the enthusiastic child, pops out and presses her little thumb right in the centre of a freshly-stuck sticker with me. I’ve met her almost enough times to start to remember how she used to think, to laugh, to feel.

Smile. I no longer fear that my pouring a little bit of joy into cards and gifts and creative projects through the use of stickers is insincere. I relish every moment when I’m crafting with my favourite sticker sheet, delighting to play in the innermost place of my heart, while recognizing that sometimes, the door closes behind me when I leave. I’ve mourned the child I felt I lost, and I’m creating a new me, one that can benefit from every layer I’ve built over the years and every land I’ve wandered in. My life is another amateurish, yet not-half-bad art project from grade school. And it deserves to be stuck in an envelope and sealed with a big, bright, colourful, textured, scratch ‘n sniff, three-dimensional sticker.

Peel. This was my childhood.

Stick. This is the self I’ve built.

Smile. In this, I am satisfied.