Amber Cygan – Comfort from a Dignified Teddy

Claudia Henock 0:02
Welcome to another episode of Your Most Precious Thing, the podcast that delves deep into the captivating tales behind the objects we hold dear. I’m your host, Claudia Henock, and I’m thrilled to take you on a journey to uncover the mystery, the nostalgia, and the sheer wonder within the things that regular everyday people hold on to the most. So whether it’s a weathered trinket passed down through generations, or a modern day artifact with the surprising twist, Your Most Precious Thing is here to celebrate the sentimental, the quirky, and the downright unforgettable. And now, let’s meet our guest for this week.

Claudia Henock 0:35
Amber Cygan loved video games, and is always being drawn to survival and post apocalyptic themed titles. She sought to turn her passion for interactive entertainment into a rewarding career by moving to Florida to pursue a degree at Full Sail University and beginning her career at Universal Creative. There she helped teams create immersive theme park experiences across the globe. She is now a Producer in the gaming industry, playing a crucial role in bringing games to life and loving every second of it.

Claudia Henock 1:05
Hi, Amber, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today?

Amber Cygan 1:08
Hi, I’m good. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Claudia Henock 1:11
You’re welcome. And to start, what would you say is your most precious thing?

Amber Cygan 1:17
Oh, I took your question very literally. I kind of took it as like, if there was a house fire, what would be the thing that you would grab? And that would be my childhood teddy bear, Mr. Teddy. I was not very creative with names, but this is him.

Claudia Henock 1:34
I love him. Oh my god. I love him!

Amber Cygan 1:38
He’s kind of gone through the wringer. He’s been around for 34 years now. So he’s a little old. But he’s hanging on.

Claudia Henock 1:46
That’s actually really good that he’s still in like really good condition. Of course, I’ll post photos of him on, for like social media, but that’s actually really good condition.

Amber Cygan 1:56
He’s been through a couple surgeries, I think.

Claudia Henock 2:00
Do you remember, I understand it’s been many, many years, but do you remember when you first got him?

Amber Cygan 2:07
I don’t remember when I first got him, because as I’ve learned, I was pretty, pretty young when I got him. But I do remember when we lost him temporarily. And that was very devastating. And I got a temporary bear holding me over in the meantime, and I hated that bear. I don’t own that bear. He just wasn’t the same. And I felt so bad that I hated him so much. But he just wasn’t Mr. Teddy. And he wasn’t doing the right job that I wanted him to do, so.

Claudia Henock 2:32
You had a strong connection with Mr. Teddy, so when you were given the other bear, you’re like, “No. This is not Mr. Teddy. I don’t want him. I want Mr. Teddy!”

Amber Cygan 2:42
Exactly. I’ve always had very vivid nightmares, and I felt like he kind of protected me from that. So to lose him for that temporary time was devastating as a child, so I don’t remember getting him but I remember losing him for a bit.

Claudia Henock 2:55
Well, you have your little, personal little guardian, so that’s always good thing too. Speaking of names too, I think Mr. Teddy is really cute. One of my favorite stuffed animals I had was, in addition to my Cheshire Cat, which I talked on the previous episode, was when I was younger, I actually had to go into back surgery. And one of the things that the hospital did was they gave all the kids who had to go into surgery a teddy bear. I actually called mine Helpful.

Amber Cygan 3:24
Aw, that’s cute!

Claudia Henock 3:25
Helpful was a source of comfort when I was in the hospital. So when we were young, the names that we give to essentially our beloved toys or beloved, stuffed animals are really important to us. So I don’t see it as weird. I see you as like something that was really special and really important for you.

Amber Cygan 3:40
Yeah, I’m not sure if I thought he was like a businessman, or why he did the honorific of Mr., but he also, you can’t really tell now because there’s lights on, but he also glows in the dark. His pajamas do, they are very faded, and he has little bunny slippers on.

Claudia Henock 3:55
I love it. That’s, I think that’s one of the best teddy bears I’ve seen in a while. That is amazing.

Amber Cygan 4:01
Thank you. I actually looked him up out of curiosity because I never knew what brand he was or anything like that. He doesn’t have any tags on him. And he’s actually, well first of all, I was triggered because on eBay, it says he’s vintage, so that’s rude. Second of all, apparently, if he’s in pristine condition, he’s worth like 70 or 80 dollars now.

Claudia Henock 4:20
Oh my god.

Amber Cygan 4:22
He’s a bit of a rarity. This one isn’t because he’s definitely been beaten up, but.

Claudia Henock 4:26
I know, but it shows that he’s been like well loved as well. And speaking of vintage thing, that reminds me of a whole drama with the American Girl dolls, when the dolls were from like the 1990s. Like I was born in 1995, so anyone during that time age was like, “Are they seriously calling us vintage now? What is happening?”

Amber Cygan 4:45
Welcome to all your childhood toys or vintage now.

Claudia Henock 4:49
Just like,”Oh no.” I understand, that distinction comes as we grow older, but it’s still like a really weird feeling.

Amber Cygan 5:00
It’s super weird. It’s very weird. When I go to antique malls, I’ll see some toys that I recognize. I’m like, wow, that’s odd, because it’ll be mixed in with stuff that’s from my mom’s generation, which is feels more vintage to me. But I guess they’re the same now.

Claudia Henock 5:16
I guess time is just really weird now as we’re getting older, I guess. There’s videos you see on social media sometimes, where it’s just like people our age going to like Target and reacting, seeing stuff, the 90s or stuff from the 2000s.

Amber Cygan 5:31
Oh, yeah.

Claudia Henock 5:31
That are like on trend now. And they’re like, “I wore this in middle school. I was in high school. What is happening right now?”

Amber Cygan 5:39
Yeah, yeah, not a fan of that coming back. It’s a lot of really ugly fashions. And I look back on pictures. And I’m like, “Uh, why is that hip now? That’s not cute!” Like jelly shoes, jelly shoes are back. And that was from my childhood. And they are not comfortable. So I don’t know why they came back.

Claudia Henock 5:57
I think I tried to like a pair of jelly shoes for like five minutes. And I couldn’t like keep them on. And what I think is really funny too, is when it comes to trends like that, they basically choose like what’s visually most appealing from that time period, instead of just the stuff that we actually wore back then.

Amber Cygan 6:14
Yeah.

Claudia Henock 6:14
Because you can compare essentially, like the y2k trends, for example, versus the stuff we wore in the 2000s. And how, like, very, very different it was. So it kind of seems like the best representational like trends from that time period from more of like a 2020s lens a little bit, you know, I always find really interesting.

Amber Cygan 6:35
That’s very true. It’s very true.

Claudia Henock 6:37
So you also mentioned that Mr. Teddy had some, quote unquote, surgeries that you had to do for him. Do you remember what that experience was like?

Amber Cygan 6:46
Yeah, well, like I said, he was kind of my protector at night, right. He helped me with all my very vivid nightmares. And that meant he got thrown around a lot. So you can, I mean, you can’t really see because I don’t think it will zoom in very well, but he’s got like a bunch of stitching all along him that’s not the most even, but he got split kind of up the center, and his little pajama jams. And my mom had to re sew all of his pajamas back on, which are his body of course, because it got so ripped off. His legs have been reattached because his slippers have gotten so old that they’ve fallen off too. So his hats been reattached several times, gotten more stuffing put back in him, his little mouth here. This needs to be repaired. This is not a goatee, that’s his mouth but it’s coming down. Like is that he’s been through, I haven’t replaced anything on him. But I have considered sending him, there’s like people on Etsy that’ll do restoration things to old stuffed animals. And I’ve considered that, but I would be emotionally devastated if he got damaged or lost or something, so.

Claudia Henock 7:50
You know what, that’s actually totally fair as well. Because I’ve seen videos on social media about people doing repair work for like beloved stuffed animals or stuffed toys, and the work that they do is really cool. But there’s always that fear of that beloved item being like lost in transit. Because if it happens to Amazon items, it could happen to your stuffed animal that you send this person, so that’s like something that’s always like concerning a little bit.

Amber Cygan 8:15
Yeah. So yeah, I’ve thought about getting him restored and looking a little bit nicer, but I’m just too afraid of that risk I guess.

Claudia Henock 8:23
That’s totally fair. So do you ever see, I do understand that Mr. Teddy is in a bit of a condition, but do you ever see yourself giving him to your children, or to a family member or something like that?

Amber Cygan 8:36
I could possibly see, like if I decided to have kids, if that would be something that will be fun to pass down. But that kind of feel bad because of the conditioning?

Claudia Henock 8:45
Yeah, good point.

Amber Cygan 8:47
Then maybe they’d be like, “Oh, Mom, what the heck?” I don’t know. I just kind of, I think it’s, I’m trying to think there’s a celebrity that also still sleeps with her teddy bear sometimes, I want to say it’s Margot Robbie actually still has her teddy bear. And I think she thought something similar just like “No, it’s mine. What would my nightmares happen?” Because he’s still, I mean, I don’t sleep with him every night anymore. But if I have a really bad nightmare, sometimes I still have those very vivid nightmares. I will go grab him from his bin, and keep them in bed with me and that does help soothe me back to sleep.

Claudia Henock 9:19
Just like, “I want my comfort. I’m gonna hold on to him. I’m just gonna like, I just, like please God give me some like four hours of sleep after like waking up in the middle of the night, please!”

Amber Cygan 9:30
Exactly, because that’s kind of the only way to soothe myself back to sleep. So yeah, I would probably want to start a new tradition with them, and get them something that I thought represented them a little bit more than my teddy, I guess.

Claudia Henock 9:43
I think that’s always a good thing too, because you could find something that represents them better. If a kid likes a dragon, they can get a dragon plushie or if a kid likes a teddy bear, then they can get like a teddy bear plushie.

Amber Cygan 9:53
Yeah, exactly.

Claudia Henock 9:55
Like Mr. Teddy is such a huge part of you. I would understand like how it will be very weird giving him to someone else, even if he was like 100% perfect condition. He’s still very much a part of you.

Amber Cygan 10:07
Yeah, definitely, it would be giving a piece of myself at this point, definitely.

Claudia Henock 10:11
What would you say is the biggest lesson that you’ve learned from Mr. Teddy?

Amber Cygan 10:16
That it’s okay to be an adult and have those cozy comfort that reminds you of childhood, or that reminds you of when you felt safer. I think that’s something that a lot of adults feel like they have to grow out of at some point. But I’m really glad I didn’t get rid of him, or anything like that, I just put him in storage for a bit. I know with a lot of my girlfriends and stuff, in our 30s, we kind of go through another 13 year old phase, kind of, where you’re an adult now, and there’s nobody to tell you that holding on to your childhood is stupid or silly. And we kind of go back, and we have the money now to buy the things that we wanted to buy when we were younger and couldn’t. So you kind of go through a second childhood, I think. And that’s super fun, and healthy, and great for your mental health. So I guess he kind of taught me that, that it’s okay to keep holding on to that stuff from your childhood. It’s not, “You’re not too old,” or anything like that, you can just keep that alive.

Claudia Henock 11:06
I think that’s a lesson that I’m working on myself as well. You see reports of how adults are now like the biggest consumer, I think like, either the biggest or like the second biggest group of consumers when it comes to toys. And it’s probably because of the whole connection with people that have nostagia and like reconnecting with their interests. I think I saw this post on like Facebook or something, where there was a woman that says your 30s are like the time period where you reconnect with your 13 year old self, and just what made you happy.

Amber Cygan 11:36
Yeah, exactly. And even with things like makeup and stuff like that, doing my makeup how maybe I wouldn’t have been allowed to do it back then, or didn’t have the skill set to do back then either. Unlike kids who grew up with YouTube today, I had to learn all that on the fly. So yeah, just kind of letting myself be that younger version of me that that’s okay now. I like that.

Claudia Henock 11:59
And I feel like that’s always just something really important to keep in mind is just making sure both your adult self and your kid self are happy. Because you always have to have like that balance between those two sides of yourself.

Amber Cygan 12:11
Yeah, definitely. And I think people kind of forget about their kid self a little bit. Sometimes we get kind of lost in the adult self. And you don’t get to nurture that child self as much.

Claudia Henock 12:23
So Amber, I want to say thank you again, for being on my show today. It was a huge pleasure to meet you today to talk to you about Mr. Teddy, and to talk about like the major connection that you have with him. If my audience wants to know more about you online, where can they find you?

Amber Cygan 12:40
I’m mostly just on LinkedIn. I’ve kind of tried to cut out with social media these days, but you can find me, I’m Amber Cygan on LinkedIn. And yeah, feel free to reach out if you have questions.

Claudia Henock 12:50
Awesome. And I will put that information in the show notes as well. So Amber, I want to say thank you again for being a guest on my show today. Thank you for talking with me about Mr. Teddy and I hope you have an awesome night.

Amber Cygan 13:02
Awesome. Thank you so much. Have a good one.

Claudia Henock 13:04
Same to you! Have a good one and have good night.

Amber Cygan 13:07
Bye!

Claudia Henock 13:08
Bye!

Claudia Henock 13:11
Thank you for listening to this episode of Your Most Precious Thing. If you want to support the show, you can leave a review on your favorite podcast platform and share your favorite episode with a friend. You can also contact me @claudiahenock on Instagram and Twitter, and Claudia Henock on LinkedIn. In addition, you can also contact me at claudiahenock1@gmail.com. You can also follow Your Most Precious Thing through my official website, www.claudiahenock.com, and anywhere where you listen to your podcasts. Intro and Outro music is Synapse by Shane Ivers and you can also listen to his music on silvermansound.com.