I Believe I Can Fly.

I didn’t go on my first ferris wheel until I was 11. It took years to get up the courage before that.

And it’s true that kids can just be too young for some fears. I notice that a lot. They just don’t think the way we think, blessedly. It’s sometimes when you’re older and more seasoned and more anxious and more aware that you think to be afraid of things you would never have batted an eye at years earlier. Some fears develop through age and experience. Or randomness. In my examples, I’m sure I barfed (love that word and had to steal it from a pregnant friend recently) several times as a young child, but didn’t get phobic about it until I was seven. I stayed at my grandparent’s house several times as a young child, but didn’t even think to get homesick until I was seven. Hmm…what is it about seven here? Something.

..As I was saying, the ferris wheel was something I was always afraid of. I was never too young to develop a fear of a wobbly, tilting contraption that sits and potentially gets stuck at the top of the sky. Or at least how I imagined it.

And you can forget the roller coaster. Never then, never still. Maybe one day I’ll take that step. I’ve come close but no..

Anything that spins makes me dizzy, including the Merry-Go-Round. I’m not a fair/festival rides person. I don’t get motion sick unless I’m with an extremely bad driver in a car, but I’ve never been able to get on rides just the same.

Except for that blessed ferris wheel. Always my favorite, after I got over the fear. And, Scarlet, well she’s amazing. She went on her first ferris wheel at three-years-old and it was not a kiddie wheel. She didn’t want to sit up taller in the car and she didn’t want me to hold her up to look at the whole park, but she sat there, transfixed, her little hand over my less little hand. And we rode. Up and down. Stuck at the top and back down again. Then she went on a series of rides I won’t go on at 32.

And if it required an adult, Cassidy went with her. Luckily! Ugh. I would have if I had to, but happy I didn’t. I got to watch with Des, for now. I imagine one day he will want to join them. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe he’ll be more like me.

And on many rides, she went alone. And there was only one, the easiest little slow car one, in which she wanted to get off before the ride stopped. At first I thought she was scared. Then when she went on a half dozen scarier rides after that, I realized she was just bored by the slow cars. She’s into bigger and better things.

So brave.

And I get to watch, taking pictures from the sidelines. I used to just stand in the sidelines, watching everyone spin around me. Literally. Now I think I’ve found my calling. Someone has to record all of this in photographs, right? Right.

The biggest shock of all came at the end. She went on the swings! That spin you around and around and give you both dizziness and the stomach tingly feeling. You lose control. It’s always been my greatest fear, both literally and figuratively.

Not her, not yet at least. Maybe I can follow her lead. I’m on the cusp of something big right now. More on that later. And it makes me feel a little queasy, motion, stomach sick. Even when I’m sitting in one place. I once heard that motion sickness is a bit due to the eye/perception/whatever thing, and a lot more due to fear of the unknown. I never believed that until now.

I’m just sitting here in one place, physically. And I’m buckling my seatbelt and readying myself for a big ride, emotionally.

I’m about to be spun around in the air.