On Jumping In

When I finally wrote my first post on this blog, it was because I was inspired by the (very) talented Marisa. Her idea was to post something every day for 100 days, as a way to challenge ourselves as writers.

I made it 2 days.

I have a number of excuses. The most acceptable one is that I spent the weekend at my parents house, where there is no cell phone service or internet. But honestly, there were two days before that where I just didn't post, even though I had all the internet I needed. One day, I actually spent a lot of time writing a post without posting it, because I wasn't quite happy with it yet. And the other day, I was honestly just too tired.

I'm a beginner at this. I think this makes me second guess a lot of the things I write and a lot of the ideas I have. I'm honestly not sure if I have the talent or confidence it takes to write a post a day for 100 days, so I'm going to make a slight change to my goal. My new goal is to have 100 posts by the time 2017 begins.

It kind of sucks that I stumbled so soon, but it's kind of okay, too. And it was a girl named Kate that helped me be okay with this.

Kate is one of the most confident, funny, and gutsy girls I know. She's also my 6-year-old cousin.

This past weekend we had my annual family reunion, and we spent some time down at Eagleville Bridge. Anyone from home will know exactly where I'm talking about, since many of us spent time there during the hot summer days of our childhood. For those of you who don't, it's a charming little "beach" area on the Battenkill river, underneath a picturesque covered bridge, complete with a rope swing.

Kate swung from that rope into the water incessantly, without fear. Even a group of 20-something-year-old men didn't deter her. She was right up there with them, showing them exactly how it's done. Our confident Kate.

However, on the other side of this covered bridge is a ledge, a ledge that many people like to jump off of. This ledge is tricky, because directly below it lie rocks, which means that to navigate it successfully you need to make sure you jump out far enough to hit the deep water beyond the rocks.

After a few of our family members had jumped from this ledge, Kate decided that this was going to be her next feat. However, the idea that you need to jump out to avoid the rocks directly below frightened her. She stood on that ledge, working up the courage to jump off. Words of encouragement from family members were echoing through the water. She would take a few steps, almost go, then back away. She would pace a few feet, inspecting the ledge and the rocks below, seemingly devising a plan to jump, then think better of it. This continued for almost 10 minutes, just enough time for all of us to realize that she just wasn't ready to jump off this ledge. Maybe next year.

And then, she jumped. She hit the water perfectly and resurfaced with a proud smile. The crowd (my family) went wild!

Kate jumping off that ledge is a lot like me writing this blog. Despite my desire to write, I needed some time to be scared. I didn't necessarily have the courage to jump in right away. I had to spend some time inspecting the risks, devising a plan, pacing back and forth, and hearing words of encouragement from my friends and family. I needed to almost give up.

But, just like Kate, I had to eventually just jump in.