Those moments where we children look up and see, well, absolutely nothing familiar, are strangely frightening. For a minute, maybe more, you lose sight of the ones who brought you into this world, the ones who know your deepest desires (a pretty pink purse please, please, please!), and your darkest secrets (The cat wanted to play with the fish, I swear didn’t know!). In those moments, you are lost in a humongous world unwilling to lend you a hand or a heart. How and where did this even happen? It might have been when you lost sight of your mother’s shopping cart for just a split second while wandering down a grocery aisle packed with your favorite snacks, or maybe in the amusement park after trying to step on every single crack and then looking up as hundreds of unfamiliar faces spun around you and your surroundings become more and more alien. And sure, under normal circumstances aliens at an amusement park would have been more than great, but at that very moment you want nothing more than a familiar someone to sweep you up in his or her arms and give you a big squeeze. It’s our worst nightmare, suddenly real in our realities. You have no one to run to, no one to tickle you ‘til you scream with laughter.
But not all hope is gone. Whether through the help of a friendly stranger or the result of your desperate cries for help not unlike those of a baby cub in distress, you’re reunited with your family. It’s the best feeling in the world, because loving and being loved is an emotion strong enough to overcome any obstacle and any fear. So I guess that as I wrote this piece, I realized that it’s the moments after that one, heart stopping and adrenaline inducing moment that matter. After that one moment of fright, you are rewarded with the relieved smiles, huge hugs, and comforting words from the ones that matter most to you. And even if you’re rewarded with a something a little more subtle, in the end you’re still able to laugh again. In the end, you just have to face Fear in the eye and stare him down, because Fear is much shorter than you think. If you look just over Fear’s head, you may see your loved ones waving right at you.