#i was such an anxious child elementary school is like my comparison point for all anxiety now. anyway

[walterdecourceys]

i am like actually terrified about backpacking in grizzly country i am feeling a dread i haven't experienced since i was in like fifth grade

[doll-collecting-aerialist]

The Story Of My Addy, In Honor Of Her Birthday.

(VERY long post.)

Growing up, the three American Girls I wanted most were Addy, Kirsten, and Cecile.  However, Kirsten and Addy were always the top dolls I wished for, they probably tied in first place. I remember being about six or seven and flipping through my first American Girl catalog I ever received, along with Kit, my first American Girl. After staring at her respective pages, I flipped through the other Historicals. I was never too interested in the non-Historical aspects of AG as a kid (other than Mckenna), I was what one would class as an aspiring history buff. I thought all the dolls were gorgeous, but Addy in particular caught my eye. She was stunning. 

I thought Addy was beautiful, and her pink meet dress was quite similar to a couple of my childhood dresses. If I wanted to be atmospheric I’d probably say I was wearing my favorite pink sundress the first time I was introduced to Addy, but realistically I was probably wearing my frog rain boots and my lobster pajamas. I had a fascination with footwear as a kid, particularly boots, and Addy’s shoes reminded me of Doc Martens. I had always wanted a pair of black boots, and I thought it was sick that Addy had “Docs.” I thought she was the most stylish out of the historical characters. I thought Addy’s hair was the prettiest out of the Historicals as well, it looked very soft and reminded me of my best friend’s hair. I also thought Addy had the prettiest face out of the dolls, I loved her nose and her eyes. 

However, the people around me didn’t see Addy the way I did. I suppose you could call it a tradition for the girls of my elementary school to huddle around a new American Girl catalog when it released. My peers often marveled over the blond or light-red haired Truly Mes, and occasionally the GOTY. They rarely paid attention to the Historicals, and when they did it was usually a doll like Julie. When I brought up how pretty Addy (or Cecile) was, and how much I loved her, the girls would laugh at me. There soon became a group of white girls in my school who would laugh at me for wanting a black doll. They would call Addy horrible things, anything from saying she looked “dirty” to calling her the n-word. They said I probably only wanted Addy so “I could have a slave.” I would defend Addy and tell them that they were wrong, but if anything that made them more antagonistic towards her and me. 

I was a very shy, anxious, soft-spoken kid, and so thinking about telling an adult made me want to vomit my Caprisun. The adults of my elementary school were also extremely dismissive of me anyway in some cases, and would become annoyed with me for reasons I won’t get into, other than that I was a “problem” child as a kid due to my home situation, being bullied, and not being accommodated in school for my disabilities. I knew I wasn’t going to be taken seriously by my teachers, and I didn’t want to gather up the courage to open up to one of them only to be dismissed. There were some adults that did see what was going on and would tell the girls to stop, but more often than not when the adults did witness the girls making fun of me, they’d turn the other way, or even condone it. Many adults asked me why I didn’t want a doll that looked like me, or asked why I didn’t want a “pretty doll.” There would be adults who would warn me that I would ruin Addy’s hair and that Addy’s hair was to difficult for me to take care of. Adults would often try to sway me to like another doll, usually a white, blonde-haired one. 

I began to keep my love for Addy a secret. As an elementary schooler, I didn’t understand why everyone was upset with me for loving Addy, but the reactions from the people around me made me feel as though there was something wrong with myself.  There wasn’t really anyone telling me that the people being racist towards Addy were the problem and that I was not the issue. My eight-year-old brain basically came to the conclusion that people wouldn’t be yelling at me if I wasn’t doing something wrong, and for a while, I felt ashamed for loving Addy. I still did love her however, and I would quietly stare at her page in the catalog for hours, becoming extremely upset with the fact that I would never have her. I adored all her outfits, they reminded me of the ones my mother and grandmother would sew for me. I wanted her Christmas Dress, Sunday Best, and Nightgown especially. I begged for a nightgown so I could be like Addy. I wanted Ida Bean and Addy’s lace-up boots. Basically, anything Addy related? I wanted badly, but I always kept it a tight secret. 

An activity my family would often partake in growing up was going to the thrift store during half-off weeks. On one of these trips, my mother found quite a few historical American Girl books, including a copy of Meet Addy and Changes For Addy. There was also a copy of Merry Christmas Kit, Molly Saves the Day, Meet Felicity, etc... But I was extremely excited for the Addy books in particular. I carried my copy of Meet Addy everywhere, from the time I was in about fourth grade, until the time I was eventually pulled out of public school in the middle of grade seven. I always had it in my backpack, and I was to busy reading it to pay attention to the kids who liked to make fun of me (or my teacher trying to teach me for that matter, my book got taken up on multiple occasions.). Meet Addy and Changes For Addy were the only Addy books I was able to read until recently, except for the times I would skim through her books when my mother went to the library. Only this past year have I been able to actually sit down and read her entire central series rather than skimming/reading random chapters.

Addy’s books were my only meaningful education on slavery and the Civil War for a long time. Before I was homeschooled, my education on the topics were often skittered around, or had details omitted to make my state appear less complicit (Where I live, all history education in public school revolves around our state, excluding things such as world history. At least it did when I went to public school.). My elementary school only had thirty minutes of allotted time for history or science instruction, and even then it was treated as optional instruction. The allotted time slot was often used for extra math instruction, test prep, or free time. I’ve had to retake much of my history education when I became homeschooled, because the education I received in public school was poor. Before Addy's books, I had been taught that ‘slavery wasn’t that bad,’ and my first actual look into the topic came from her series. My only meaningful history instruction for a long time came from the American Girl books, but Addy’s were especially important due to how little education I got on the topics of slavery and the Civil War, and also due to how much misinformation I was taught when we did discuss these topics in class. 

Addy’s books made me love her even more, and she was definitely one of my first crushes as an elementary schooler. I thought she was beautiful and strong, and I wanted more than anything to be like her. All my pink dresses became “Addy dresses” and I would pretend to dress up as her. I liked to draw her and write stories about her. My grandmother at one point gave me a doll outfit that was (coincidently?) extremely similar to one in an illustration in Addy’s book, and I loved it to pieces. I somehow found out about Addy’s stilting outfit, and that started my multiple-year fascination with stilts and begging my parents for them (I never got them). I learned to play mancala primarily because of Addy (and also for the fact that the kids at my summer camp that year based your popularity off of if you could play or not). 

 Addy was a strong character who was both a child and a girl, which I didn’t see much of, and I looked up to her immensely. She was also black, and although I’m not, seeing a strong girl character who was also in a minority meant a lot to me as a disabled kid. I was used to reading books about white, able body boys who were tough and strong, I rarely saw books that had girls who were strong, and if I did they were often adults, as well as able body and/or white. The disability representation in Addy’s books was also extremely well written, especially in comparison to much of the disability “representation” I was exposed to as a kid. I liked to read the chapters with M’Dear in Happy Birthday Addy, or the later books with Sam whenever my mother took me to the library.  I was used to disabled characters “overcoming”, or being pitied in the books I would read, but M’Dear and Sam weren’t like that. 

Eventually, I grew up never receiving Addy, and was pressured to put my dolls away. It wasn’t until a couple years later I would bring my dolls back out. My sister had her own American Girls at that point, so there was no weird obligation to let her play with my old ones, and I was no longer in public school where I would be made fun of for liking dolls. I had missed my dolls all the years they had been put away/given to my sister and I was so happy to finally have them back. After a while of having my dolls returned to me, Melody was released, which is really what completely brought me back into American Girls. Growing up, I wanted a Civil Rights American Girl badly. I am neurodivergent, and as a kid, I had a hyperfixation with the Civil Rights Movement. I wanted a Civil Rights American Girl almost as much as I wanted Addy, Kirsten, and Cecile, but she didn’t exist yet.

I immediately knew that I wanted both Melody and Addy in my collection as soon as possible (I had gotten Kirsten at that point. I wanted Cecile as well, but she wasn’t at the top of my mind as she is retired.). Although I no longer had a strange sense of reputation to uphold with my peers at public school, I did have a girlfriend. As a young teenager, I was so enamoured with the thought of having a girlfriend, that I often rushed into relationships with extremely toxic people, and this girl was no different. Aside from the usual “dolls are creepy” narrative, she also told me that she found Melody and Addy to be racist and that they offended her. She was very adamant that she would break up with me if I got Melody or Addy, and this scared my young teenage self who wanted a girlfriend (To this day, I do not know her exact issue with Melody.). I still got Melody that year, unbeknownst to her. I kept Melody a well hidden secret from her, but she had scared me enough to where I was afraid to get Addy at all. At this point I had started researching Addy constantly, and I knew the discourse surrounding her. I didn’t want to make my girlfriend at the time upset, so I held off on getting her. I have an AG store close to where I live, and I went a couple times after getting Melody and every single time I wanted more than anything to get Addy.

It would be a couple years before I would get Addy, as I got her this past January. I had started to become very antsy to get her, and in my wait for her had welcomed both Nellie and Josefina into my collection. About last September however, I made the mistake of bringing up how much I wanted Addy on an activism account I ran on Instagram, and immediately had people flooding me with all the usual Addy discourse. It took a long time to recover from that, and I had to shut down that account for a couple months. Since then everyone has cooled down about Addy, and I have some people who even follow me specifically for Addy. I’m not ashamed to admit that account has turned into more of an Addy Appreciation Account rather than an activism account. 

My quest to find the perfect Addy became all I would talk and think about. If you were within a mile of me, you KNEW that I wanted Addy, and I wanted her badly. Shout out to my friends who allowed me to talk from sunrise to sunset about Addy with no breaks for multiple weeks in a row. I was constantly looking on second hand sites, thrift stores, anywhere I could to find the Addy I wanted. I had my heart set on buying a pre-Beforever Addy at that point, and I was doing everything to find a listing that was affordable and that I loved. Then came the day where I found an Addy listing that I immediately fell in love with. I don’t know what exactly it was about the listing, but I wanted THAT Addy. Unfortunately, the site wouldn’t let me check out and I was incredibly upset to the point where I had multiple of my own friends, and even people I didn’t know on my Instagram account mentioned earlier offer to buy me an Addy doll. My “activism” account is relatively large, and there was a group of people ready to all chip in and help get me Addy. I had people ask if they could buy the listing that I wanted, and then ship her to me. Addy was all I could talk about at that point, and I had only talked about her/posted about her for at least a month. It only made me more upset to find out that the listing I had wanted had been sold. Plot twist! It was my mother who bought her.

(This is the first photo I ever took with Addy, I didn’t think I had saved it, but my friend did!)

I cried for about two weeks until she arrived. I was so happy I was finally going to have Addy, I couldn’t believe it. I thought for so long that I would never be able to have her. When she finally arrived it was love at first sight. I didn’t cry immediately upon unboxing her, I was trying to keep my composure, as I was filming unboxing her to put on my Instagram. Mostly so my friends could see, but also because I wanted to keep the moment, and because some of my followers were interested. I cried after turning the camera off, however. For the next couple of months I was extremely protective of my doll, I had the fear that she was just going to be taken away from me again. I took her everywhere with me around the house, she slept with me, ate dinner with me, would attend my online classes and sweep the porch with me. I didn’t like going out in public when I couldn’t have Addy nearby, I still don’t really, not that it’s much of an issue as we are quarantined for the time being. I’m planning on getting a mini Addy that I can keep in my purse sometime. 

Addy doesn’t stay on my shelf with my other dolls, she sits on my bed. Someday I hope to have her complete collection. That’s a far off, possibly unreasonable goal, but I don’t mind. My more attainable goal is to read all of Addy’s books, which I’m about halfway through doing. I recently got my first official Addy dress, her Christmas Dress, which she is currently sporting as we speak.

[ms-aleli]

My MC - Rosalynn “Lynn” Day and her daughter Synnove (means “Gift of Sun”). I HC Lynn as a second-generation immigrant from Filipino parents because I was inspired by Alma and Thomas. I hope you like this.

PROLOGUE

There’s nothing a mother would not do for her child.

It’s the one truth that Rosalynn “Call me Lynn” Day, has lived with even before her wonderful took her first breath all those years ago.

It’s the one truth that became her foundation when her daughter was born.

It’s the one truth she dedicated herself to when her ex-husband left the two of them to fend for themselves.

For her daughter, there’s nothing she wouldn’t do; no mountains she wouldn’t cross; no risk she wouldn’t face head on; and as today would prove, no place she wouldn’t move to.

That’s how she found herself driving all the way to Goldcliffe, a place she never even thought she’d ever be going to, and ready to leave all the security of her life in Seacrest behind her.

As she turns to park next to an immaculate silver Lexus, she looks at the seat beside her to see her daughter visibly nervous. Her lips curve to a smile as she thinks back to the letter she got two weeks ago that she has read over a hundred times already.

Dear Ms. Day,

Your scholarship application has been reviewed, and you have been approved for the next phase.

Please bring your child to the Bernhardt main office on May 22 at 10:15 AM for a brief interview.

Regards,

Anne Tinsley

Principal

Bernhardt Academy

The letter never fails to incite the mix of emotions within her - pride, disbelief, pride, gratefulness, and pride again. It doesn’t help that her mind returns to the meeting with her daughter’s previous principal, Ms. Gupta, who commended her daughter’s intelligence and even pushed for this scholarship.

It was nice that there are people in the world who would not let her daughter’s bright flame diminish because of her unfortunate lack of money to send her daughter to a high-end school where she would shine best.

At present though, she can see her daughter’s bright flames dwindle as she fidgets nervously on her seatbelt.

“You ready to go, kiddo?” She reaches over to smooth her daughter’s brown hair from her face.

Her daughter’s eyes meet hers and she can see how truly anxious she feels. “I-I guess so,” she mumbles as she looks down to avoid her gaze, “but, Mom, what if I’m not smart enough to go here?” Her eyes look outside the window of their car and she can see how it could be jarring to her young daughter.

In comparison to the public elementary school her daughter went to, Bernhardt’s building stood tall and imposing. Even the exterior screams at Lynn that she’s out of her league.

But no, this is for her daughter’s future and she knows that her daughter will thrive better in this kind of school.

“Hey, hey, none of that now, Synnove Day,” Lynn took her daughter’s face on her hand and gently made her raise her head so their eyes could meet. “You are a star. You’re smart and talented and hey, remember what Ms. Gupta said? You’re way above your age group in terms of smarts and I know you’re going to crush this, okay?”

Synnove bit her lower lip, “But what if I can’t do it? What if I screw up?”

“You won’t,” Lynn says with the conviction of a mother - unbending. “I know it’s hard for you to speak up sometimes, but if you start to freeze, then you just remember that mom believes in you. I know you can do this.”

Lynn can see the way her words affects her daughter - Synnove sits straighter, eyes gazing outside to the Bernhardt building now with a mixture of excitement alongside her nervousness.

“Do you need an energy zap?” Lynn smiles as her daughter give a nod and hold out her finger. She meets it with hers and grins, “Zzzzzap.”

“Zzzzzap!” Her daughter chimes.

Lynn breaks off and helps her daughter out of the seatbelt, “Alright, sunshine, you’re all charged up and ready to kick butt.”

“Mom, I can do it myself,” Synnove whines but there’s a beam on her face as she exits the car.

The inside of Bernhardt Academy is even larger than it was outside. Lynn almost got lost if it wasn’t for the kind security guard who directed her to Ms. Tinsley’s office.

“Good morning, I’m Rosalynn Day with my daughter, Synnove for an interview with Ms. Tinsley at 10:15?” Lynn approaches the secretary with an amicable smile.

The secretary is a young woman who didn’t have a friendly face but she was polite as she waved them to the cavernous office where a grey-haired black woman sat behind an imposing desk.

Lynn smiles as she moves forward to shake the woman’s hand, “Hi, I’m here for the scholarship interview? I’m Lynn Day, and this is my daughter, Synnove.”

“Hello,” Synnove’s voice is soft and she hides behind her, “it’s nice to meet you.”

“I’m Principal Tinsley,” the woman says and motions to the plush armchair in front of the desk, “Please, have a seat.”

Lynn didn’t even get the chance to be comfortable on the obviously high-class armchair as Principal Tinsley went straight to the interview.

“What, in your opinion, is the most important value to instill in our children?” She asks.

Lynn blinks and wonders why she’s the one being interviewed instead of her daughter, but she answers honestly, “It’s important to teach them curiosity. It’s important that we encourage our kids to question how things work - to explore, to love learning.”

Principal Tinsley raises an eyebrow, taking down a few notes. She looks at her paper for a hot second before saying, “I see here that you’re not currently a resident of Goldcliffe?”

“Oh, well, if Synnove were to receive this scholarship, we’d look for a place to live in town,” she answers.

The way that the principal’s microexpression spoke volumes and Lynn knows she’s not about to like where this line of question is going. “Do you think that would be economically feasible given your current job as a… waitress?”

Lynn felt indignant but tampers it down for daughter’s sake. “I’ve managed to save a little for the potential move, and I’d find a job as soon as--”

The principal cut her off, firing, “To maintain this scholarship, you are required to be a member of our PTA, which would be a considerable time commitment.”

“Oh, that shouldn’t be a problem, I’m used to balancing a lot of responsibilities,” she says. What she doesn’t say is that she has plenty of experience, what with juggling three to four jobs just to save for her daughter’s future.

“I’m sure,” Principal Tinsley says. She then returns her eyes to the paper and taps her pen on it, “I notice you’ve left the father section of the application blank. Would you be so kind as to tell me about Synnove’s father?”

Lynn can feel the rising of the familiar rage inside her but she tries to stamp it back down as she forces a smile on her face, “Synnove’s father hasn’t been on the picture for a while now.”

The principal frowns and makes a note on it. What ‘it’ is, Lynn doesn’t know. But the silence that follows does not bode well for her.

“Are-are there any more questions you need me to answer?” She asks. “Or, do you have any questions for my daughter?” since it is her merits that should be on focus right now, she doesn’t say.

“Ms. Day,” Principal Tinsley says with a sigh, “I’m going to be frank. I was not impressed by your daughter’s application.”

From the corner of her eyes, she sees Synnove stiffen. The way that she holds herself close as if she wants to hide causes Lynn to feel anger rise within her.

“I-but your letter--”

Principal Tinsley cuts her, “My vice principal was moved by Ms. Gupta’s glowing letter, but I see nothing here that suggests your daughter is Bernhardt material.”

A part of Lynn wants to stand and ask the principal to fight her for her daughter’s honor but she settles for the indignant cry, “Are you serious? She’s already reading at ninth-grade level!” She clenches her fist under the table, “What about the science project I mentioned?”

Principal Tinsley does not look impressed as she gives a cursory look at the paper, “Ah yes, the Saturn model,” she says blandly. “While it was very… artistic, it hardly proves she has any detailed understanding of the--”

“I understand a lot about Saturn!” Her daughter, whose dream since she was a toddler was to become an astronaut and had studied every single book in the public library, cries out. Her face is red and her brows are scrunched as she defends her passion, “I wanted to make the Phoebe ring, but Mom said it wouldn’t fit in the car.”

Now, it was Principal Tinsley’s turn to be surprised, looking at Synnove as if she was something curious, “I’m sorry… the ‘Phoebe ring’?”

Synnove’s face suddenly brightens, and she leans forward in her chair, happy to chatter away about her favorite subject. “It’s so cool! It’s like nine point nine million miles from the planet, and it has a retrograde orbit!”

Seeing the surprised look on the principal’s face, Lynn saw a chance and says, “Sweetie, why don’t you tell the principal about Saturn’s compositions?”

Lynn has heard this a million times before, and she still can’t fully understand what her sweet daughter is yammering on, but she can see the way that Principal Tinsley’s eyes brightened as she listens to Synnove yammer on about how Saturn is a gas giant but the planet isn’t gas at all.

“Ooh! It’s also the only planet in our solar system that’s less dense than water.” The open delight on Synnove’s face never fails to make Lynn smile. Her little girl continues with a grin as she discloses a ‘fun fact’ to the principal, “That means that if you put it in a really, really big bathtub, it would float.”

Synnove’s face read clear as day, ‘isn’t that the coolest thing you’ve heard?’

Principal Tinsley stares down at her forms, then turns back to Synnove, looking suddenly thoughtful.

“Tell me, Synnove, how would you calculate the surface area of a sphere?”

Principal Tinsley’s careful words contrasted the way Synnove quickly pipes up, “Four pi times the radius squared.”

“What three things that distinguish insects from arachnid?”

“Insects have compound eyes, antennae, and six legs instead of eight.”

“What year was Marie Curie awarded the Nobel Prize?”

“Um, which one?” Synnove tilts her head, “Because she got one for physics in 1903 and one for chemistry in 1911.”

The curious look on Principal Tinsley’s face stays there, even as she sits back in her chair and take it all in. After a long moment, she turns to the proud mother and asks, “Synnove, she’s really only nine years old?”

“Nine and two-thirds!” Her daughter pipes up.

“And she’s wanted to be an astronaut since she was six. She’s got a whole life plan laid out - majoring in astrophysics, pilot’s license,” Lynn beams at her daughter.

Never let it be said that Lynn Day is a humble woman when it comes to her daughter. She’s a bragger and she can’t help it. Her daughter truly is amazing.

She turns back to the principal, “Of course, the first step is to enroll in an elementary with a famously strong STEM program, so…” she trails off.

There was silence in the room again. But this time, it’s not an uncomfortable silence.

Principal Tinsley sighs and gives a small smile, “Well, nothing’s official until all the paperwork is submitted, but,” she leans down and offers to shake the little girl’s hand, “Synnove Day, welcome to Bernhardt.”