My object is a piece of bent metal, a "helix-shaped toy," a spring. A slinky. When I was about 8 or 9, I asked for one for my birthday after I watched a NASA video in school about how slinkies didn't work in space. First my parents gave my a plastic one even though I specifically said metal and I was very disappointed. I asked for a metal one again the next year and got it. I'm not sure why it had to be metal, but now that I've had both, I know that metal is much better. Plastic slinkies go down stairs so slowly, and then often either stop or fall over. And if you twist them just a tad bid too much, they break. The metal ones are much hardier. But most importantly, plastic slinkies don't make a satisfying noise when you bounce them in your hands. There are few noises as satisfying as the "sllllink" "sllllink" sound of the metal slinky.
I discovered very early in my relationship with my slinky that it was a great toy to play with while doing homework, or writing stories. The slink noise soothes and helps me think. So I've taken my slinky with me everywhere I've ever lived since I've had it. My slinky has lived in Rockford, IL, Lac Du Flambeau, WI, Wellesley, MA, Boston, MA, Medford, MA, Brighton, MA, Kibbutz Ein Dor, Israel, Jerusalem, Israel, and Ann Arbor, MI. It has also been a tourist--across Western Europe in a backpack. It spent a month in an apartment across from the American embassy in Moscow. It witnessed me solving geometry problems and memorize Latin endings in high school, writing papers in college, and writing my dissertation in grad school.
My slinky habit annoys other people. I could only use it when my roommate wasn't home in college, and now only if my husband isn't in the room while I work. Also, because it's, well, metal, it kind of smells. So my hands have a weird metalic smell after I bounce it for a long time. For about the first five years of its life, it also used to make my hands kind of dirty, sooty like, but not anymore.
I wouldn't say I love my slinky. It's an object. And I'm sure if I lost it, or it broke, I'd be sad for a moment, but I'd immediately get another one and as soon as I wore it in, I'd be as happy with it as ever.
But if there's any object in my possession that represents me, it's it.