My Pullpull

Daily writing prompt

Describe an item you were incredibly attached to as a youth. What became of it?

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The item I was incredibly attached to as a kid wasn’t a toy, a blanket, or some action figure I begged my parents for. It was my Pullpull. Better known to everyone else as my pillow.

Now this wasn’t just any pillow. This thing had character. History. Mileage. And most importantly, smell. I didn’t just sleep on Pullpull—I inhaled it like a life-support system. The scent was comfort, safety, home, and sleep all rolled into one lumpy, probably unsanitary rectangle of fabric.

I honestly believe my attachment had very little to do with softness and everything to do with smell. As a kid, smell mattered more than logic. Pullpull smelled like my room, my house, my life. It smelled like bedtime stories, summer nights with the windows open, and not having a care in the world. If that pillow had gone missing, I’m convinced I would’ve just laid there awake, staring at the ceiling, emotionally abandoned.

Traveling anywhere without it was out of the question. Overnights? Pullpull came along. Staying at someone else’s house? Pullpull came along. I probably showed up places carrying that thing like it was a briefcase full of classified documents. Other kids had stuffed animals. I had a pillow that smelled like me and refused to be laundered.

And that’s the key part: washing Pullpull was strictly forbidden. Washing it would’ve erased its entire identity. Clean pillows smell wrong. They smell like soap and lies. Pullpull smelled real. If anyone even suggested washing it, I reacted like they were threatening to wipe my memory clean.

As I got older, my parents quietly tried to phase Pullpull out, which I noticed immediately because you don’t just sneak a new pillow past someone with that level of emotional attachment. A replacement pillow felt cold. Fake. It didn’t know me. It hadn’t earned my trust. I’d still reach for Pullpull every night like some kind of subconscious homing device.

Eventually, time did what parents couldn’t. Pullpull aged. It flattened. The seams gave up. The smell faded just enough that it stopped working its magic. I don’t remember a dramatic goodbye. No ceremony. No last hug. One night it was there, and then one day it wasn’t. I suspect it disappeared quietly, under cover of darkness, when I was finally old enough not to notice—or at least old enough to survive without it.

But here’s the funny part. I still get it. To this day, smell is everything. A familiar scent can drop me straight back into a memory faster than any photograph ever could. Pullpull taught me that comfort isn’t always logical. Sometimes it’s just a smell that tells your brain, you’re safe, go to sleep.

I don’t still have Pullpull, but I like to think it did its job. It carried me through childhood, one night at a time. And honestly, for a beat-up old pillow, that’s a pretty solid legacy.