A Polar Bear is a Polar Bear is a Polar Bear

And other startlingly obvious realizations.

Jun 20, 2024

Cross-post from Eat My Words with Jenny Vanderberg Shannon

This feels like the story of my life in many ways. Anyone else? What polar bears have you seen covered in sprinkles? Note--I don't blame anyone who has done this to try to survive. I certainly have. It's a coping mechanism of the abused. I get it. And I don't think the author means to insinuate any victim-blaming, either: only that, when we finally can see abuse for what it is, when we finally feel brave/safe/strong enough to call it what it is and reject it--that is a huge watershed moment, indeed. It's an enormous milestone, one worth reaching for if we can. Such a huge part of embracing the genuine is rejecting the lie. -

Stephanie Gail Eagleson

Several months ago, I had a nightmare. We had invited a large amount of guests to the house for dinner- most I didn’t recognize. I was all aflurry with the last-minute rounding up of the random socks that are always strewn about our backroom, the finishing of a crispy top in the broiler, and the tucking of the stray hair that always pulls out of a ponytail at the last minute when one guest family came in with a hostess “gift”.

It was a dog, they said grinning. To keep Juno company.

Reader, it was not a dog.

It was a fucking polar bear covered in rainbow sprinkles.

I stared, open-mouthed at this hulking beast ridiculously covered in rainbow-colored confections and for the first time in my very polite life called out the lie in real time.

“That is not a dog, it’s a polar bear.”

Everyone was incredulous. Was there something wrong with me? They asked. Did I drink enough water today? Should I go lie down? Because this was a dog, a very generous gift, and I was being rude.

THERE WAS A MASSIVE, DANGEROUS ANIMAL IN MY HOUSE AND THESE IDIOTS THOUGHT THAT IF THEY COVERED IT WITH SPRINKLES I WOULDN’T NOTICE IT WOULD PROBABLY TRY TO KILL ME.

I wish I could tell you what happened, but I woke up.

The feeling, however, of being gaslit by my own brain lingered long afterward.

I woke up with betrayal so thick it coated my tongue. Panic was still rising in my throat. They think I’m stupid or blind or both, I thought. Who thought covering something dangerous with pretty colors would make it less violent? WHO LET THIS THING INTO MY HOUSE?

I couldn’t shake it. Not for weeks. Months. This damned, sprinkle-covered polar bear.

Until I finally realized why.

It was me.

I’m the one who always tries to cover the polar bear in sprinkles.

I’m the one who stares into the open mouth of danger and calls it a domesticated dog.

Until it eats me alive.

I thought about it again this week as I attempt to reclaim the pieces of myself that often fall to the wayside when I begin to become too obsessive about my “professional” life and neglect my actual life-life. There was a watershed moment, an existential crisis of standing in the check-out line in the library with more books than I could read and realizing- I don’t have all the time in world anymore.

Right then and there, I wanted to call out every polar bear I’ve attempted to cover in sprinkles and be done with the facade.

I no longer have the time to pretend a polar bear covered in sprinkles is less risky.

A polar bear is a polar bear is a polar bear.

What polar bear have you been trying to cover in sprinkles?

Call it what it is.

A Polar Bear is a Polar Bear is a Polar Bear.

Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise-even yourself.