Clmnt

— Darrin Moir

When I was four, I lost a balloon to the sky. It had been bumping against my head and tickling my face in the backseat the whole ride home. Maybe it was the static electricity, but I felt a strong connection between us.

Once home, I got distracted by some ants in the driveway weighed down with crumbs ten times their size. I looked back and the balloon was already falling above the treetops. My dad looked at me with disappointment, pointing up. My heart, the size of a small bird, just learning how to fall in love, was tied to that balloon. I reached toward the sky and screamed from deep in my belly, stomping the ground for not holding on tighter.

It doesn’t come back, Dad said, No matter how much you yell and kick and scream. He comforted me with a few words, grew tired of my whining and told me to let it go. It was just a balloon.

Scared that other things might fall up, I threw myself at his feet. He fought to keep me from clinging to his leg, telling me to walk like a big boy, but I held on tight.

Later, I realized that he wouldnt have fallen into the sky like the balloon. I had been acting childish. He was wearing shoes, and he must have known that tying shoes to our feet was really about tying ourselves down so we don’t fall up.

Once I made the connection, it explained everything.

Why it was so important to get all the looping and bunny-ears snug and double-knotted.

You’re going to fall and hurt yourself, my parents said.

So I made sure Mom and Dad always tied their shoes on tight. I furnished their pockets with fistfuls of stones. Just in case.

Eventually I got another balloon. I kept it in the hallway closet, freaking out whenever I found it near the entryway, having slipped out as someone grabbed their coat or their shoes, inching closer to the doorway of the great blue abyss.

Mom and Dad laughed at my reaction. It didn’t make sense, especially when they screamed at each other about dirty dishes and unanswered phone calls.

One day they screamed so hard the walls started to cave, and they used up the air in the house so that it was hard to breathe. I hunkered down in the kitchen carefully tuned for my name.

There was a final word.
A door slammed.
Heavy breathing.

When I came out of my hiding place amongst the Tupperware, my mom was in the entryway, staring hatefully out the window toward the sky, her shoulders were rising and falling with the hissing noise that she was making through her clenched teeth.

My father’s shoes stood neatly by the door.

I see and hear it more and more. The self-doubt. The insecurities. The second guessing.

I feel like it’s a fact of life. It’s so easy to doubt yourself. There’s a sense of unease when you have nothing to rely on, but yourself. Much more when other people are depending on you.

And to each their own. Different people deal with it in their own ways.

I find a lot of people let it consume them. They cower in doubt, afraid to take the risks that would help them excel. Afraid to take the chances that could potentially make them the happiest they’ve ever been. It’s hard to overcome unless one reinforces the idea that good things can come even if things don’t work out as expected.

There are those that overcompensate for it. They act as if they have no fears yet they are the most afraid. When your mind is clouded by both your fear and your efforts to mask it, mistakes will be made and you will be no better than the people that let it succumb them.

Then come the people who own it. They know they are not perfect with the realization that no one is. And that in itself is powerful. There is less fear in knowing that you are in company. And with less fear, people are more willing to make the mistakes, to learn the lessons, and then reap the benefits. There’s so much possibility in it.

There is strength to be found.

And if you are ever in doubt and can’t find the will to believe in yourself, know that I believe in you.

— Jim