Sometimes You've Just Gotta Jump

Our neighborhood pool has two diving boards.  They delight my children in their mere existence.  They exude some sort of invisible, yet amazingly powerful magnetic field that draws little people time and time again to their bouncy tautness.  They are the Sirens of the pool deck, singing their song . . . luring the sun-baked to jump from their safety to the watery depths below. 

I hate them.

With each trip up the steps, with each run from start to end, with each bouncing spring into the air, I cringe.  Every nerve in my body stands on end ready to send my body springing from my lounge chair into action as I anticipate what is sure to be a tragedy of Greg Louganis proportions.  I hold my breath every. single. time. that the little toes I have so often counted and kissed and wee-wee-weed all the way home leave the solidity of the board.  I didn’t realize that I was doing it at first, but even now that I’m conscious of it, I’m powerless to stop it.  I don’t breathe again until that head pops out of the water, and together we gasp for the air that our lungs crave.  And so the cycle repeats itself, again and again, as I pray for the point when exhaustion overtakes their little bodies, and the safety of the lap pool becomes “enough” if only for a while. 

I’m afraid.  A lot.   If ever Hollywood needs someone to dream up and write those unbelievable, worst possible scenario scenes for soap operas, I’m their girl.  It’s a glitch I have, this fear, this worry.  If I love you, chances are, I’ve imagined your horrible demise at some point or another.  It’s a compliment really – it means, in my extremely odd way, that I care.   It’s not just diving boards that evoke my terror; bicycles and skateboards (actually anything with wheels), stairs, careless drivers, uneven pavement, and brownies with nuts all have the power to send me to my knees.  If only I could have you each fitted with a protective bubble. . . Let the number for the children’s school show up on my caller i.d., and I’m at the hospital watching as the cast is put on before I even hit the button to answer the call.   Let my mother call at an odd time, and I’m wondering if my black “funeral” dress has been to the dry cleaners before I’ve even heard her voice.  If I’m in the grocery store parking lot and a fire engine screams by headed in the general direction of my home, I look down at what I’m wearing because surely it is my address that they are headed to, and all of my other clothes are but ashes. 

It’s ridiculous.  It really is.   But then I don’t think that I’m alone in my fear – over the top, maybe, but not alone.  It’s actually quite biblical – we, people, seem to have always been afraid.  Time after time the Lord had to repeat Himself, and even today I stubbornly ignore His whispered “fear not”.  Inventors of helmets and seatbelts and life jackets and the little hammer gadget that you put in your glove compartment so that you can cut your seatbelt and break your window should your car plummet suddenly from a bridge and become submerged underwater (oh yes, I’ve played that one out in my mind a time or two) all count on our fear for their livelihood.  And you sir, you genius you, working tirelessly in your garage inventing the protective human bubble – keep up the good work; I’m counting on you!

Life is scary.  But it’s such a precious gift intended to be enjoyed and shared and LIVED to the fullest.  This world we live in, that our children live in, is scary.  But it’s also big and beautiful and wonderful and so full of possibility.  If we get too busy being afraid, and I’m talking to myself here, we miss out on all the wonderful.  If I hadn’t endured the children jumping off the diving board, I would have missed the pure, innocent joy on their faces as they broke the surface of the water.  And I can’t help but think that, despite its allure, the protective film of the bubbles I so long for would dim the brilliant blue of the sky or seal out completely the sweet smell of blooming honeysuckle.   

I’m afraid.  A lot.  I don’t know that I will ever be “cured” of it.  I won’t stop telling the children, over and over like a broken record, to “be careful”.  It is highly unlikely that I will fall in love with the diving boards, take the hammer-thingy out of my glove compartment, or encourage hang gliding as a hobby. I will, however, try my very best to temper my fear with the joy that is living.  I will recognize the gift of each sunrise I’m given and refuse to let one single day pass by safe and unwrapped just because I was too afraid to rip the paper. 

This weekend I fell down our stairs.  The very stairs whose dangers I have repeatedly professed to the children in hopes that they would “be careful”.  My right ankle is stiff, and I have an impressive bruise that shares a remarkable resemblance to the state of California on my behind.  It could have been much worse, but it wasn’t.  I could have been seriously injured, but I wasn’t.  I’ll go up and down those same stairs a countless number of times in the years that we call this house our home.  I may fall again . . . but then, I may not.  At the end of the day, Greg hit his head and it was awful and terrible and scary, and my heart hurts for his poor mama if she lived to see it.  I imagine that she hated diving boards too.  But I bet she loved gold medals. 

amy