Comfort Objects

Some of you may have noticed the shark in my last afghan post, so I thought I'd tell his story. I selected sharkie from a collection of objects at a work training. I got to the table late, and there wasn't much left, so I took him. I figured there would be some "object lesson"attached to the object, so I tried to think of one that would go with him. To be honest, I didn't like his gray color, or his big eyes, or his teeth. I didn't like that fact that he belonged to a group of animals thought of as predators.

But as the day went on, and the training got long, I held onto sharkie. I squeezed him and petted his soft fur and played with his tag. At some point, there were questions about our objects, but I don't really remember them. I just know that by the time I got home, sharkie had become a comfort object.

What's a comfort object? It's an object that has emotional value, a transitional object that eases security. How items become comfort objects is unknown, different for every person, but they work. Children have them, and guess what? Adults do, too.

Sharkie became a comfort object because he soothed my anxiety during a long work training in which I needed to be still and quiet, but wanted to be anything but. When I got home, I left Sharkie out on my desk in the open, because I wanted to remember the calm he brought me. Sharkie is still here and every time I think about moving him, I decide not to do so. I may be an adult, but I still gain comfort from inanimate objects.