The Fifth Thing You May Not Know About Me

(I promise I wrote this before I read Ian's post, but it kind of makes you wonder about sibling connections that we were both writing about the same subject in the same week, doesn't it?)

Remember last year when I was expanding on the five things you may not know about me? Well, I don’t blame you. I barely remember it myself. If you want to refresh your memory, before you read on as I attack the fifth one I never got around to doing, here you go (first link takes you to the original post, second link to my explanation for expansion).

The thing I think I feared most when I was a kid was attention in public places. I wanted to be left alone and to make it through each school day unnoticed by any except my few friends with whom I quietly played until I could get back home where I could play and read books. I paid careful attention to classroom dynamics in order to figure out how to achieve this goal, and thus I discovered that the best way to be left alone was to pretend to like things I didn’t and not to be afraid of anything. The boys were constantly trying to scare the girls, and the girl who was targeted and reacted would immediately become the center of attention.

Basically, I didn’t have too much trouble when pitted against boys trying to scare me. The only reptile I didn’t adore (I’ve always loved frogs, lizards, and turtles) were snakes. If I had such a creature (with the exception of the snake) thrown at me, I was more likely to make sure it didn’t get hurt than to scream. And (truth be told), snakes didn’t show up, because not many of the boys were particularly enamored of them, either. We lived in Copperhead territory, where parents warned their children from a very young age to stay away from snakes, terrified of bites from this poisonous variety. We all pretty much heeded out parents’ warnings on this one and kept our distance.

I thought women who screamed and jumped on chairs over a cute little mouse (as depicted on such shows at The Brady Bunch) were absurd. Spiders fascinated me: the bigger the better (although I didn’t particularly want them crawling on me, but it’s easy enough when you’re fascinated by them not to show fear when one is discovered crawling out of a hole, so that no one thinks of picking it up and letting it crawl on you). I was the kid who went around purposely picking up rocks to see all the creepy crawly things residing under it. Yes, they might be somewhat gross, but they were also very intriguing.

I’m pretty sure I held the position of “best ghost story teller” amongst my peers for a number of years. I was always disappointed when ghost-story-telling sessions came to an end due to some coward’s tearful race to the grown-ups or, worse, to loss of interest from others. I always wondered how they could lose interest while I was still waiting for a story that would scare me even more than the last.

So, I managed to avoid drawing public attention for being a scaredy cat. I wasn’t quite as adept at avoiding attention for being the class klutz, but at least no one could get me screeching and acting like a baby on the playground or in the classroom. I was just as tough as the boys.

However, there was one fear no one ever tested. No one ever thought about the fact that someone might be afraid of heights. I mean, it’s not as if we had cliffs or skyscraper scaffolding out on the playground. The greatest height we had was the top of the monkey bars, from which a kid could fall and break an arm (as some had), but that was about it. No one knew as I began to develop this fear that it was happening.

I wasn’t always afraid of heights. I don’t know when the joy of climbing to the tops of trees and racing around on rooftops ended, but I do know that by the time I was in 8th grade, no one would catch me even on the lowest of tree branches. This is sad, really, because up until that point, I’d loved climbing up into a tree with a good book or playing Tarzan with jump ropes for vines.

My fear of heights is extremely particular, and I’ve come to realize over the years that it really has more to do with having been that class klutz, probably, than anything else. I’m not the least bit afraid to be up in an airplane, say, or on a mile-high swinging bridge, or at the top of The Empire State Building (a spot I adore). However, put me anywhere I have to rely on my own two feet to keep me from dropping a few yards, and I become paralyzed with fear.

This fear of mine probably wouldn’t be much of a problem if I hadn’t happened to marry someone who has to climb to the top of every cathedral we come to while exploring The British Isles (have you seen some of those precariously-balanced little ladders you have to climb in some places in order to do so?), scaling the sides of ancient pyramids in Tikal, and hiking up cliffs in Maine. He’s become extremely patient with me over the years, but there is usually some point during these sorts of vacations at which we’re stopped, and I’m tearfully announcing, “I just can’t!” And I’m always like a cat: quite often I can manage to climb up something, but coming back down becomes an exercise in torture.

Many of you are probably thinking, “Why does she go?” “Why doesn’t she send him off to these places alone?” Well, you’ve obviously forgotten I’m somewhat of a masochist. I actually do want to see all of Salisbury from the top of the cathedral; I want to watch the sunrise from the top of a Mayan pyramid; I want to see the ocean from that mountain peak in Maine. I just don’t want to have to get there. And I want to make sure I’m a good 100 feet back from the edge at all times.

I’ve been known to say, “I’ve really got to get over my fear of heights.” I’m sure I could do so with a little intense psychotherapy. But, at a company Christmas party a few years back, I found myself actually admitting my fear to the boys. I was the only female manager in my department at the time, and for some reason, we were being cliquish (which was unlike us), and all the managers in my department were sitting together. Once the admission was out, I noticed that none of them immediately hoisted me up onto a ladder somewhere. None of them decided to drive me to the edge of a cliff or to take me out onto the roof of the building. As a matter of fact, when I announced it was a fear I felt I ought to overcome, one of them turned to me and asked, “Why?” Another immediately echoed this sentiment.

Why indeed? After all, I’m not a roofer. I don’t install telephone lines. I’m not in the practice of washing skyscraper windows from the outside. And if I’m at an age at which fears no longer excite the boys into action, causing me to be the center of attention, I can live quite comfortably with them. Just don’t put me on a trapeze in front of a huge audience, please.