When I was four or five, we went to the park with most of my extended family. I don't know where this park was located, but it had a small zoo and hiking area incorporated on the grounds. My sister, Eliz, was going for a walk with some of my other family members, but I wasn't allowed to tag along so I comforted myself by going to the playground.
It had one of those rock ship slides where you climb up a ladder from one level to another. Just two steps up the ladder I became afraid of falling so inexplicably, I let go of the ladder and fell straight back, landing with a thud on the sun baked sand. Even though it wasn't a long drop, I was only two or three steps up, I could feel the wind knock out of me and I lay on the sand crying. For some odd reason, I did the only thing I could think of, burying the prize from the Cracker Jack box that I earlier opened into the sand.
Then in first grade, I did it again. It was on the first day of school, during our first recess. I climbed up to the monkey bars. I had climbed them many times before but for some reason this time, I moved my arms across two bars and hung there, afraid of falling. Once, again, I just let go, falling like a rag doll to the ground. The aide came to my rescue, telling me not to move while they got the principal. After some discussion, it was decided that I could get up, but they would send me home for the day. I was brokenhearted because this meant I would not be able to eat lunch in the cafeteria out of my Barbie lunchbox that mom had bought me.
I was a weird, weird child. I can't explain why I purposefully let go each time thus ensuring that the thing I was afraid of would happen, but I think that's why I can't stand to be at the edge of a steep fall. How can I be sure that I won't just suddenly let go?
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