I think I'm almost Real.

"What is Real?" asked the Rabbit one day. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stickout handle?"
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a
long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit. "Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are
Real you don't mind being hurt."
Does it happen all at once, like being wound up." he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why
it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully
kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes
drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because
once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."
-Margery Williams

My eyes are drooping, my joints are loose and I am pretty shabby. I think I am starting to "become", and I think those that matter don't care what I look like, only what's in my heart. It does take a lifetime to become Real.