The Gingerbread Unicorn

Ever since I was little, I have always had a difficult time saying goodbye. Bidding farewell to a person, to a season, to a place—even to Christmas decorations at the end of the holidays—can still prompt tears for me. 

As a highly sensitive child, I used to hide the gingerbread cookies I had decorated at our annual holiday baking party amongst the knickknacks on my bedroom shelf. I distinctly remember hiding a carefully iced and daintily decorated unicorn-shaped cookie next to a tiny glass Pegasus figurine because I couldn’t bear to eat the cookie. 

The unicorn was one of the special gingerbread cookies our family friend Kim always baked for each of her three children and for my sister and brother and me at these Christmas baking parties. Before we would embark upon decorating trayfuls of cookies in various holiday shapes, Kim would make a ceremony of presenting each of us with our own unique cookie, stating why that particular shape had been chosen for each child. I still remember her saying, “Julie has the unicorn because she reminds us of the importance of dreams and imagination.”

I remember feeling humbled by that description and proud that Kim had chosen it for me. Maybe, then, it wasn’t just the gingerbread unicorn I was keeping safe but also that way of looking at myself. It is a way of seeing myself that I will hold onto always—one to which I will never say goodbye.