The Rope Swing & Letting Go

It's not the leap that's scary. It's letting go of the things that tether you.

There’s a memory that’s been popping up a lot lately. I think I finally figured out why. 

When I was little, my grandparents had a bomb shelter on a tiny lake. The shelter was built in the 60s, and by the time we were using it, it was in the 80s, and the whole thing was overgrown and falling apart. Inside the concrete structure built into a hill, there were old tomatoes in glass jars stacked on a corner shelf. And that was all that was left in preparation to survive a nuclear blast. The roof had overgrown and over the years, trees sprouted and then grew tall on top of the shelter.

There was also a rope swing. 

This rope swing (in my mind) was a grand and glorious thing. It hung from a giant tree and there was a handle made from a tree branch that hung from the rope’s end. You could grab ahold of this, climb the hill, run down the hill while holding on, and you would swing way out over the lake and then drop into the water. I watched my brother and cousins (even my uncles) do this and I was in awe. It seemed so dangerous, and also wildly fun.