I am not a minimalist.
Not in any way, shape, or form.
My family actually laughed when I told them that the subject I was going to be writing about was minimalism. My daughter even teasingly went as far as to say that I like to hoard things.
I certainly do not. At least I do not hoard "things", anyway.
Fear. I know it well.
Fear and I were good friends.
Years ago, late at night, my house was intentionally shot at.
My son has a favorite stuffed animal. It goes everywhere with him. In the car. To the store, the park, to Grandma's house. When he is scared or scrapes his knee, that stuffed animal is there to comfort him. He may need me too, but that little animal is what calms and soothes him. One look at this bedraggled stuffed animal and you know it is well loved; precious in the eyes of my little boy.
When my son fell the other day and hurt his arm, he reached for that animal, and it got me thinking. As adults, we don't have a favorite stuffed animal to comfort us (at least most of us don't - if you do, it’s ok! no judging here!). So, if not a stuffed animal, what do we cling to when we are scared or hurt? What do we reach for in the dark and lonely places? When everything around us seems foreign and chaotic, where do we turn?
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