After my mom died, after high school ended, after the first rude awakening

After my mom died, after high school ended, after the first rude awakening of adulthood, I filled the void with toys.

Literally — Star Wars toys.

I bought back my childhood with credit cards I should never have had. Shelves full of plastic nostalgia, little plastic certainties in a world that suddenly felt jagged.

It’s embarrassing now. But the compassion I have for that younger self is deep.

He wasn’t greedy. He was grieving. He was trying to rewind time. He was clinging to the myth of childhood joy, one action figure at a time.

I went into debt. I buried myself in objects. And eventually, I woke up.

Buddhism. NPR. Art. A wider world. A new identity.

But I still look at that era with tenderness: He was doing the best he could with the tools he had.