Weightless

Sometimes I wonder what life would be like if it was as easy as a swingset.  

When I was a kid, a swingset was Mecca for me.  I could pump my legs and for the first time, in my I-am-the-biggest-kid-on-the-playground-way, I could fly.  Also, since my previous life experiences of being dragged down by sexual abuse, I always felt like a swingset was the only place that I felt, weightless.  That and swimming (another weightless hobby) made me feel safe.  They were the places when gravity wasn’t pulling me back down to earth and making me a person that had to face reality.  When I was on a swing, I was a master of my own universe.  I  was the girl who could have found a (physically impossible) way to swing all the way around.  That’s how good I was.

So, imagine my surprise, when at the age of twenty-eight, drinking wine by myself on a Saturday night, I realized just how much that damn piece of plastic and metal meant to me.  Not only do I suffer from a deplorable amount of self-hate and derision, but an amazing amount of doubt.  I found myself walking to the swings tonight in the middle of the night, in need of guidance, and in need of weightlessness.  Now, I find myself compiling one of the most brutally honest pieces I have ever written.  I am a fraud.  

I spout how I want to help children succeed and I’m there for my kids and how I will give anything for them.  This is now the lie, because I would do any and all of those.  However, I do them for me.  This is the way I reassure myself that I have not failed in this world.  I tell people how well I’m doing, when in all reality, I’m never really good.

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