Relic 03

Relics is an ongoing project, asking people to share items of personal significance - the things they have accumulated through their lives that remind them of a person, a place, a philosophy or a feeling. The things you take with you, that you could never willingly part with.

Darcie Bailey

Below is a transcript of the audio above. The text has been edited for clarity and accessibility.

Jesse

Can you introduce yourself?

Darcie

Yes, so, hello. My name is Darcie Bailey. What else would you like to know in the introduction?

Jesse

What do you like? I mean, like, what do you do? A bit in the sense of art or work or what have you want-

Darcie

However, I would define myself?

So I am a professional who works in digital experiences, predominately in financial services. I've been really lucky that I've been able to climb my way up the ladder, so to speak, in a relatively short amount of time.

It allows me to afford my true passions, which is what I call a warm life.

So that means obviously eating out probably too often, but also to my pots and crafts, which I take probably too seriously and quite honestly. And I tell everyone about all the time. Yeah, that's probably how I would describe myself.

Jesse

So, what's your relic?

Darcie

My relic? Pulling him out now of my bag. I definitely didn't do this earlier.

He is, as you can see – well, not the people listen to the audio.

Jesse

They’ll see the polaroids.

Darcie

It's a teddy bear. And his name is Steve. Now, when I look when I saw Alex post an Instagram story about this, I thought, what, what, what are the couple of items I would pull out from my apartment if it was to catch on fire, which would be bad.

Darcie

I do not have contents insurance, so it's a lot. So that would be bad in many ways. But Steve was one of them. So Steve is. And so you go, that's pretty normal; a teddy bear is a relatively sentimental item. So you'd be correct in thinking that. However, Steve is most teddy bear I grew up with. He is a Build-A-Bear I made when I was 16 at my little cousin's seventh birthday party.

Darcie

So when she turned seven, she had a whole bunch of her friends go to a Build-A-Bear in Chadstone and I went with them and funnily enough, I was mistaken for staff while we were there and I was like, I can not help you, old lady. Some old lady like something someone's nana was like “blah blah blah”

And I was like, I'm sorry, I don't work here. So he is fun fact a champ bear denoted by the heart patch, he's got sewn on to him and he's like, tortoise-shell colour

I thought he was really cute. So he's a slightly more expensive bear. But because I said to my aunt, I promise I won't get any clothes if you go, let me get this.

She said yes.

So Steve is very well stuffed. I will say he he's so well stuffed. In fact, when I was in my uni days and I famously don't like to have a lot of pillows and so when I had people stay with me, I wouldn't have enough pillows for people staying with me to have.

So I would sacrifice my own pillow and sleep with my head on Steve because he's so well stuffed, he's actually better than nothing.

So he comes. So that's a fun fact about Steve.

He's sentimental to me, obviously, because I remember my cousin being little and that's really fun. He's also very cute, but part of it is also that he really is sort of …how would I describe him?

He definitely feels like a symbol of an end or the beginning of young adulthood, I guess, to where I am now.

I guess I really think about who I was when I was 16 compared to who I am now at 27, being like, so fundamentally different. And yet I didn't think I would ever be. I think I felt like I was like, Well, I'm 16.

This is kind of it. Like, you know, I kind of hold him forever. But, you know, it's really interesting.

You kind of see and like, I've had him like with me throughout my whole young adulthood and he's always been there and it's just really nice. Sometimes when I'm very lonely, I will sometimes sleep with Steve.

He always ends up on the floor because it's the same reason I don't like a lot of pillows in my bed.

I just they annoy me and I just kind of kick them off.

Steve never remains on the bed, but the theory is always there.

So yeah, he just I guess he just marks He's a very sentimental to me. He just kind of. Yeah, he just represents kind of, I don't know, a coming of age story, but like your twenties, not like, you know, like puberty.

Although I definitely do think you do go through a second puberty in your mid-twenties.

So there you go. So that’s Steve.

Jesse

Tell me about who you are when you made him?

Darcie

I think I've always been quite an awkward person, but if anything, I'd be significantly more awkward than I been when I was 16 than I am now.

I think I would have never worn this top. I think little I don't know the kind of sense in my head that says it all. How would you What would you say, Alex?

Alex

Hello, my name is Alex and I've known Darcy for forever, so I feel like I can speak on.

I don't think I would speak ill of 16 year old Darcy, but I would in turn say that I think now you're very confident. And I think I obviously know you very well, so I would interpret that whole, like, “I wouldn't wear this shirt” as in, like, a just, like, classic, like figuring yourself out, not being very confident in, like, you know, all our bodies and their changes and all that stuff.

But I think who you are now is someone who is very like, has… even though like everyone we can all kind of flimflam around a little bit. I think that to your core you're very like you have a good strength in who you are.

And I feel like you definitely have been on a journey to get to where you are.

And I think 16, like so many people, would say, it was definitely a, you know, a… It's, yeah, a getting there. You were definitely like midway in the journey at 16.

Darcie

Yes. That's so interesting. One of the things I've thought about recently, like in the loss, I say I want to say 12 months, two years.

It's about this idea of I've really felt like I've struggled with letting go of who I was.

I feel like I turned 15, 16 and then like, clung on to it. I think part of it was that I felt really different in Sale because I wasn't super feminine and, you know, I didn't like makeup.

Obviously, that's me again, describing more femininity.

But like, you know, I liked video games. Again, not many girls liked… well, there are a few, but like, I just felt so different and it felt hard to be myself in Sale. But I did feel like I was relatively true to myself in Sale.

And so I felt like moving to the city and feeling like I kind of wanted to change.

I felt it was almost like I betraying myself at 16.

I work so hard to be who I was when I was 16, but now I want to be different. Like on I think it's in the last couple of really years post on my therapy, which you don't know about Jesse.

But I went to therapy and I think especially my work in like the last 12 months and my recent depressive episode, which again, you don't know about Jesse, but Alex does know, I think is a lot about me letting go about who I was when I was 16 and giving me permission to be who I am at 27.

And it's just been a really long process of like letting go and then healing from it and then now being where I am now.

Jesse

You're really on it. When you said like your identity forms in such a… because you're not quite an adult, but adulthood is really right there.

Like for all intents and purposes you're an adult at 16. So like you're coming into that sort of period, so your identity feels concrete and it's very hard to shake that, especially because if it feels real and it also feels comfortable, like so much of change comes from discomfort or like, you know, “I don't like this, so that's pushing me into something next.”

Whereas if you’re like, “I feel confident who I am,” It is hard to shake that even as life changes and you end up in different places.

Darcie

Yeah, I think so. I think there's also like a level of fear about change. I've never liked change a huge amount, but there was also like some trauma in my life where I was like, it really did feel like almost like a comfort blanket or security blanket. Sorry, that's the correct word, actually, in kind of remaining who I was when I was 16.

Jesse

So like, no matter what happens, this is who I am. And I've got that?

Darcie

Yeah, sort of I kinda lean into that.

Jesse

So tell me. Yes, tell me about the cousin who's birthday it was?

Darcie

Her name is Kelsey.

She is not technically my youngest cousin, but she's pretty close up there.

So what about her… She turns 19 this year and she finished high school last year and she's going to uni. She goes to Monash, she's doing media and communications, I want to say, so I think I have since I moved to Melbourne because I'm not from Melbourne originally, I'm from Sale - little country Gippsland and their family’s always lived in Melbourne and so it's only like the last four years since I moved here, like the last five years and I've gotten to like know her, especially as she so kind of grows up.

So yeah, it was really nice that she invited me to a birthday party then and, but it's also been really nice to spend time with her and get to know her as she grows up.

Jesse

So and so when you see Steve, what is the feeling that comes when you see him?

Darcie

I honestly he sits. He doesn't sit on my bed, but he does sit on my little chest of drawers to the side. I honestly forget that he's there a lot of the time because he's just kind of like stationary, I forget that he’s sort of there. But I always go to like, again, like I said, when I'm feeling lonely I go “where’s Steve? Where did I put him?”

I don't know. I always look at him and I think I think comfort. I think cute. Yeah, I think I think, you know. No, he's just warm. He just very friendly.

Jesse

Were there any stylistic choices you made with the build that you can remember 11 years on?

Darcie

No, Basically, Steve, as you see him, is as he comes factory mate. So there are three many Steves out in the world.

Jesse

My God, if you ever saw one out in the wild, would you get another Steve just to, like, add to the collection?

Darcie

You know, my Steve is one of a kind. I say also this was many years ago. They definitely don't make this type of - I think he was like a special edition. Well, not special edition, but he was like a limited run type of bear.

So, no, like, I don't I like to keep things, but I don't like, I wouldn't collect teddy bears, like I don't even collect plushie.

Yeah, Steve was just like a, I wasn't even like, I was like, cool.

Build-A-Bear is going to be fun when I was 16. Yeah, it's kind of, it's kind of like a happy coincidence type of thing.

I was like, I don't think I would go out like tomorrow and go build another Steve because you can't build another Steve. That just doesn't happen.

Jesse

Has he always had the significance? Like when you were moving home and things like that, did Steve always come with?

Darcie

I wouldn't say that he's always had such great significance per se. But in saying that he came with me to uni when I moved out, like I could have like gone given to my mum, go take him home, put him somewhere. But he didn't. So I think like no but yes I think yeah I think it's only really when I… when I asked myself the question earlier this week I was like obviously it’s Steve, like without even a question.

So I think it's possibly yes, but I just it wasn't in the foreground, so to speak.

Jesse

And I think a last question is like, what would it mean to you if you lost him, if there was like a house burning down moment?

Darcie

All my apartment did burn down and I did lose him? I think it'd be really, really sad. I'd be like, “No, Steve!” but I always I would always have my memories of him. I don’t  sleep with him every night. So it's not like he's part of a routine.

It would just be sad. It would just be like losing. It would be like your stuffed horse toy.

You'd go, “I don't know where he at.” Well, I wouldn't know where he is. He's ash. But it's one of these things you want to.

Jesse

Always find him in the breeze.

Darcie

In the breeze. But this is one of those things where you go, You know what? He was a real G. I miss you Steve.

So I think that's kind of yeah.

Jesse

Shoutout to the little blue horsey – I’ll find you one day, baby.

Jesse

I think that's it (Darcie: Beautiful.) Thank you very much.

Darcie

Well, thank you very much, Jesse.

[ENDS]