Climbing the Ladder

I am having a hard time comprehending that I actually finished my first semester in college.  For many of you who went to college right after high school this may be difficult to understand what the big deal is.  To me, it's a huge deal.  I wasn't even sure if I could do it.  Seriously.  My trying attitdue was right, but my head was also filled with doubts.  Many doubts.

I waited a long time for my turn to learn.  When I was the traditional age of a freshman, I was going through quite a lot.  I was living a nightmare, actually.  I went away to college but dropped out and took incompletes in everything.  I got married when I was 19 and started a family.  I taught music lessons, I babysat, a taught preschool for years, but always part time and I brought my children with me.  I wanted to be a stay at home mother more than anything in this world.  It was important to me that I be the one raising my children, especially when they were babies.  I wanted to breast feed them and care for them all the time.  So, I decided to wait until my youngest child started kindergarten until I went back to school.  I had to wait such a long time because I kept on having babies!

Well, today was my last exam of the semester.  I was about to leave my house to drive the 20 miles to my school when I realized I locked my keys in the house.  Oh, no.  My heart just sank.  I have worked so hard, I didn't want the semester to end on the note of me missing my German exam.

I called Adrian.  We tried to think of windows I could break.  We cannot afford to replace windows right now, so he mentioned the ladder and the back deck being a possibility.  It's a sliding glass door and we don't always lock it because it is so high off the ground.  He was working so he couldn't really talk.  I was in a hurry and on a mission.  I got the ladder.  It was raining.  My shoes were filling up with mud and water.  Cold mud and water.  I had quite a time maneuvering that huge ladder.  It must weigh at least 60 pounds.  I was cussin', let me tell you.  Cussin' and cryin' in the rain.  And the damn ladder got hung up in a tree while I was trying to get it into the right place.  I cussed and cried some more.  And then I thought, "What am I doing?  I cannot climb up there.  It's like 13 feet in the air!  Plus, the only ladder I have ever climbed is a step stool.  I am too fat to climb up this thing.  And I am terrified of heights!  I get dizzy on the step ladder.  Seriously."

After finanlly getting the ladder in the right place, I stepped on the first rung and I prayed.  Please don't let me fall.  I have five kids.  They need a mother.  No one will know I am on the ground for hours and hours.  I will die.  In the mud and probably in the dog shit.  Oh, god.  I stepped in that too.

I went up one more.  Please don't let me fall. 

I went up higher and higher.  I was the scariest thing ever.  And just like going to college, it may not seem like a big deal that I climbed a big ladder, but it is huge to me.  And it is raining.  And I am totally alone.  And I have cold mud, water, and dog shit in my favorite shoes.

I reached the top and realized I didn't exactly know what to do next.  Do I hold on to the rail and let go of the ladder?  How?  Oh, my goodness!  I wanted to climb back down right then and there.  But I'd made it that far.  Why quit now?  Gosh, hours and hours must have already passed.  I am sure I've missed the exam.

Letting go was the hardest part.  I am much too fat to be hoisting myself up on some wooden railing.  Maybe I can just let myself fall onto the deck and try to roll to avoid cracking my head.  But of course, seeing as how we are rednecks deep down, our broken dishwasher is in the way.  And so is the grill.  Why our dishwasher is still on the deck is beyond me.  Why the hell is it stil out  here?  That dumb thing flooded the basement from the upstairs kitchen over the summer.  Yeah, at the same time our aircondition unit broke when it was 104 degrees outside!  That was hell.  And I mean that.  So is the dishwasher on the back deck as a reminder of how we survived washing dishes for 7 people by hand every day when it was 104 freakin' degrees last summer?

I don't know how I did it, but all at once, I realized both my feet were on the top deck railing and I was off the ladder.  It was sooooo high.  "Do not look down.  I repeat: do not look down," said the little voice in my head.

Of couse I looked down.

The ground was so far away and my dog looked like an ant.

I felt dizzy.  I squated down with my big butt in the air and my head pointed down on the deck's floor.  I eased one leg down.  Slowly.  Gently.  I began to feel graceful.  Like a tighrope walker when they dip one leg down.  Only I was wet.  And fat.  And I had cold mud, water, and dog shit in my shoe.  And I was crying.

My leg was dipped down as far as it could go and there was like a foot of air between it at the deck floor.  Why do I have to have such short legs?  I am stuck.  I am stuck in this awkward position.  Looking like a mom on crack, playing circus on her back deck, 13 feet above the ground.  It's my leg with the bad ankle.  The one I shattered in a car accident 17 years ago that aches when it is raining.  Why does it have to be raining?

If I jump onto this leg, I may have to just hop to my exam.  And watch the sliding glass door be locked.  If it is, I will break the whole door with my fist if I have to. 

And then, plop!  Down I go.  No big deal.  I am safe.  Whew!  And the door is unlocked.  I run in, get my keys off the key hook, jump in my car, use some handy dandy baby wipes to do a quick clean up on my hands and shoes and sweater.  I fly like the wind to my college, get to the parking lot.  It is totally full.  I park on the street.  I run.  OK, so I did that weird old lady walk/run thingie.  I saw my friend.  We high fived each other, in a matter of speaking, for surviving the semester (he has kids and a full plate too) and then I sat down in my desk only 3 minutes late. 

It was a miracle.  Sorta.  I did that whole ladder/ deck scaling thing in about five minutes... though it seemed much longer, lemme tell ya!

It was an appropriate ending to my first semester.  I did something I didn't think I could do.  I took on 5 college classes and I made a 4.0.   When I don't overthink things, and just take things one step or one rung at a time, and PRAY HARD, I can do just about anything.  And for me, that's a huge lesson.

And goodness gracious, I'd be a chicken in a hen box if there wasn't a RAINBOW in the sky when I got back home!  I tell you what, life is really like that.  It really is.