My Experience with Crossing the Monkey Bars

“Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward.” Author unknown I was going to write about my favorites quotes about letting go past mistakes or feelings we may have about someone and moving on. However I did not get no further than the first quote and it brought back memories of when I was in the fourth grade and wanted so badly to cross the monkey bars. Back when I was in the fourth grade, the monkey bars was sort of a boys club thing to do and only girls with the Yiddish term of chutzpah would even dare and succeed in crossing the monkey bars. So there I would go through my daily ritual during recess, go up and down on the see -saw watching the boys climb and then cross the monkey bars. I admired them so much as they would go swinging with rhymthm and strength. And some of the girls who could do it too….Wow! Then one day a couple of girls who regularly met on the see-saw with me decided that this was the day they were going to cross the monkey bars. Me I wasn’t volunteering do anything, I’m not crazy. But I decided to change my ritual and walk with the girls to the monkey bars. Nothing more. First Linda climbed up to the top. Once she was up there she looked down at us. To me being this tiny little kid, and when I glanced up at her as she down at me,.she looked as if she was on a mountain. I could never do that I thought. She first put her right hand out on the first bar, and her second hand on the second bar. Her body began to swing. She reached for the third and then she looked down and she fell. A sigh went within the crowd. Next up was Gwen and before she began to climb she looked at the monkey bars as if stydying them. Next she bent down and picked up some sand and dusted her hands with it. “Wow, she’s a pro,” I say to myself. Next she climbed that monkey bar with such confidence. When she reached the top she did not look back nor did she look down. She looked straight ahead as if concentrating. Gwen then held out left hand and grabbed the first monkey bar, she then took her right hand and grabbed the second bar. She was swinging and she was off. Then came the left arm and the right, with each swing I was holding my breath. The next thing I know Gwen was standing on the other side of the monkey bars, looking across at us. She had succeeded! She made it, she did! I was so excited, I thought “I’m next, I’m gonna do it.” Before I even really thought about it I was at the top of the monkey bars, before I knew it, I was looking back at the girls from the top of this thing. I then looked down at the ground, it was a long ways down from where I was standing. I once again glanced back at the girls who all seemed surprise. “You can’t do it.” I couldn’t go back I had to at least try. I reached up and touched the first bar with my right hand and then I reached up with my left hand and also touched the first bar. I let my legs began to swing. I couldn’t move!. My arms were getting tired. The bars were beginning to burn my hands and I released them and I fell. All the girls began to laugh. “I knew you couldn’t do it,” one of the girls replied. Funny thing is I felt like she did and I did not believe I could do it also. So I had defeated myself before I began. Gwen became so masterful at the monkey bars. It was like watching a gymnast when she would hang from the top bars upside down. Sit at the very top as if a Queen who is looking down upon her kingdom. As for me well I retreated once again to my little safe haven of the see-saw. How tired I was of just going up and then down. Not to mention sometimes thudding to the ground . Remember now I was playing on a see-sawr that was probably ten years old and this was 1973. So being made of real wood and no kind of bumper that would stop you from hitting the ground hard, especially if your co pilot decides that they no longer want to ride and jump off. Then the day came when swinging from side to side, Gwen decided to she wanted to be a little more daring and instead of swinging from bar to bar, she wanted to swing from bar to every other bar. As she reached for the bar with her left hand, her hand slipped and she fell on her left arm. Gwen was usually a tough girl but this day she cried and cried. It was that day when I decided I would go up to that monkey bar again and dare to cross.


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