So I guess I’m writing now.

Do something scary.

Writing scares me. It scares me because there’s no hiding. The ideas and emotions are right there for anyone to see. You can’t shove those feelings down into the sweet, dark cubbyhole of repression. Nope, it’s in front of God and everyone and you have to own it. And I think that’s why I’ve avoided any serious writing. Fear. Fear to let anyone see too much. And fear that once I put things into words, there’s not much there to see after all. Not much to say.

I guess starting a blog is an act of faith, both in that I’m confronting a fear of what I might say and that I hope it’s worthwhile

I have this great memory of seventh grade PE. How that is remotely possible I’ll try to explain because just about everything related to seventh grade, PE class, or being 13 years old was miserable and something I’d largely like to gloss over. Neverthless we had a section of that PE class dedicated to rock-climbing and rappelling.

Now the Athens Middle School gymnasium was old and our set-up was mostly on bleachers so old the faculty worried when we got too animated sitting in them. The bleachers were put away so that we would climb and rappel on the outside of them. But the best part of the class was on one end of the gym at one wall where there were hand grips and ropes and someone on belay. (Look at all this climbing vocabulary I remember! Impressive, eh) We learned how to set up our own seat harnesses and use carabiners. Every class started with putting together our own seat harnesses and pairing up with a partner. And we would practice and practice on the pushed in bleachers until it was our turn at the big wall.

At the big wall we had our partner on belay while we climbed and rappelled. There was one section where the climber had to step away from the comfort of the last, comfortable hold to reach the next one. The eyes could see the next hold. Watching previous climbers it was obvious this wasn’t a difficult reach. But even knowing there was someone down on belay and the PE teacher wasn’t far away, the reach for the next step created this fear in the pit of my stomach. And reaching anyway, finding the next grip and step anyway has been such a strong memory of doing something despite the fear, it seems fitting that it’s the story I describe in my first blog post.

Now the mean girl who made fun of my high water pants or the boy who mocked my permed hair or any other number of horrific injustices from middle school will have to wait for another day.  The pride of taking that little leap of faith will outshine them all as it has been a significant piton in my memory.