Fear

I look at this picture, and I’m afraid. Look at it. Stare at it for a while and see if you don’t feel the rock falling under the additional weight of you and your foolish boyfriend. I have had two husbands and a number of boyfriends. Not one of them would have stood on this rock. One of them might have suggested I stand on it while he watched from above, but I am not certain. I might send it to him and ask.

Courage is such a buzzword these days. When Eleanor Roosevelt said, “Do something that scares you every day,” I am pretty sure she didn’t have this in mind. She was way too practical for that, I think. Maybe what she meant was to do something outside your comfort zone or something that is not in your routine. But words matter, and if she were alive today, and this picture was staring at her on her Instagram account, I am pretty sure she would cross out ‘scare’ and replace it with unusual, or different, or surprising.

I do not feel bad at all that I do not want to be the girl in this picture, although I’d take her body any day. But if that is what she does to get that body, I’ll settle for my own that, with my latest hip replacement, is walking really well, thank you very much.

And to my fabulous daughter who has that desire to step over the edge of things, don’t send me a picture if you do this. And if, by chance, this is you in the picture, tell your father, not me.