I spuddle.

The thing with a lifelong fear of heights is that as a person who is afraid of heights, you tend to avoid heights, period, and then you lose touch with EXACTLY HOW AFRAID YOU ARE.   If “you” are “me”, that is.  You forget.   You think — because you are an idiot — that maybe you have OUTGROWN THE FEAR and maybe that was just something silly that you USED to be afraid of when you were younger because you were a colossal wimp but now you are a MOTHER and as such, are not afraid of ANYTHING!  Which is total bullshit because now you are afraid of even more things than ever.

The first time it occurred to me that I was afraid of heights was in 8th grade gym class when for some misguided reason, the teacher picked ME to demonstrate how easy the uneven bars are to twirl around.    Apart from being afraid of heights, I also do not twirl.   When you look at me, I LOOK like a sort of normal person who may be able to do an adequate amount of twirling, but I can’t.   I don’t know why.  My center of gravity is like a lead weight the size of a goat that I keep in my feet which pretty much insures that they are always touching the ground.   But back in 8th grade,  I was nothing if not intimidated by teachers and game to “demonstrate” my magical gymnastics skillz which had maybe just been dormant up until that exact moment.   I always sort of thought that I could do things, like “skate” or “do a cartwheel” but the fact that I actually COULD NOT was just some kind of trick and that I would be able to perform these feats in the exact right circumstance.   Ha ha!  I WAS TOTALLY DELUDED.

So up I went and standing there, four feet above the ground or whatever it was, I FROZE.   Like I absolutely froze.   Why am I telling you this story?   No idea.   Regardless, I couldn’t feel my legs.  It was too high!   I was expected to go HIGHER and then TWIRL AROUND?   UPSIDE DOWN?   GIVEN THAT I CAN’T EVEN TWIRL AROUND A BAR THAT IS ONLY THREE FEET OF THE GROUND?   GIVEN THAT I HAVE NEVER SUCCESSFULLY TWIRLED?

NO WAY.

I can tell you it was the world’s longest demonstration of how to stand terrified on the lower bar of the uneven bars while the teachers — who were idiots — said things within my earshot such as, “What is WRONG with her?   What a weird freak.”   And then — I do not make this up — the virtually THREW me over the top bar, made me let go, and DROPPED ME ON THE MAT EIGHT FEET BELOW.

When I got my breath back, I said in my best affronted twelve-year-old voice, “HAVE YOU NEVER HEARD OF FEAR OF HEIGHTS?”   I would have used the latin word, and in fact probably did because when I was twelve I was both smart and slightly obnoxious, but now that I am no longer twelve, I don’t remember it.   Anyway, I flunked that part of gym class.   Fear of heights was just not a good excuse apparently for inadequate twirling.

But that was a long time ago and having dutifully avoided anything that is more than three feet off the ground since then, I’d somehow forgotten how freaked out I could get exactly.

Which is why I found myself yesterday afternoon climbing the world’s tallest concrete staircase (with gaps!  gaps everywhere!  open balconies!  nothing to hang on to!) on my way to fall to my death slide down an overly big waterslide (click that because there is a youtube video of the EXACT STAIRCASE THAT I AM TALKING ABOUT) because The Bun really really really really felt bad (why?  WHY?) that usually Daddy took him and THAT WASN’T FAIR that Mummy never got to have any fun.   I was up for it because it looked, from the bottom, like a really solid staircase and my PRESCHOOLER wanted me to and damn it, I would not let him down because I used to be scared of heights a long time ago when I was young and silly and knew random latin words.

It was only when I was ON the staircase in a line up of about fifty jostling pre-teens that I realized that this little niggling memory I had of being afraid of heights was for realz.   People, if it had been possible or even slightly socially acceptable, I would have starfished myself to the wall and refused to move until they sent the fire department to save me.   IT WAS SO HIGH UP!   OMG!   I’m not exaggerating!   And!   To make matters worse!  NO ONE ELSE WAS AFRAID!   They were all dangling over the edges!  Unafraid!  Having fun!  EVEN MY FOUR YEAR OLD!   Everywhere I looked was DOWN!   A LONG WAY DOWN!

So naturally, my brain compensated for this terror by immediately supplying me with earthquake footage.   You know the type, where the staircase peels away from the wall and all the people are crushed horribly under the fallen concrete and there is NOTHING TO HOLD ON TO and my boy!  MY BABY!  Would fall all the way to the concrete pool deck!

He did not help matters by repeatedly throwing himself against the rail and going, “LOOK MUMMY LOOK AT THAT!” and forcing me AGAINST MY WILL to look at some tiny speck in the pool a million miles down.

By the time I got to the top, my legs were shaking so severely that I nearly blacked out, which would have been embarrassing and probably also fatal because “unconscious” and “waterslide” are not a good combo.    But I managed to sit down and slide and I didn’t die and yay for me.

I guess that’s it.   That’s the punchline. I did not die.  AND I had so much adrenalin coursing through my body that my asthma cleared right up.   Fear, FTW!

I’ve forgotten why I thought this would be a good blog post.  Maybe I just wanted to give you a break from saving the whales.  But really, you SHOULD save them, damn it.   Because it’s important to me.   True.

Filed under: Kids, Me, Myself and I