This may come as a shock to you because I’m tall but, I am afraid of heights.
I don’t mean, “Oh phooey, I can’t look over the edge of the Grand Canyon.” I mean, I stand on a chair and I begin to TREMBLE.
Shannon and I were on vacation a few years ago when we first signed up for the, Disney Vacation Club, and we found out that one of the perks at that time was to go to the rooftop terrace of a resort by The Magic Kingdom and look down INTO The Magic Kingdom and watch the fireworks display from ABOVE it.
I thought, I could do it once … I didn’t even make it to the elevator. You see, we took the Monorail to a resort (The Contemporary, for those of you playing the ‘Home Game’) and then you cross over a bridge into another resort (Bay Lake Tower), get on an elevator to the top floor, have “some” libations and I would be fine in the back row watching. But, that’s too easy for me, here’s what ACTUALLY happened.
We boarded the Monorail a few stops earlier (from The Grand Floridian) and it was PACKED! Forced to cram ourselves into a standing room only, bouncing train with cranky park-goers and crying children, I tried to make the best of knowing I was a hundred feet in the air by watching the horizon go by through the windows of the exit doors of which I was RIGHT NEXT TO, if I had exhaled fully, my shoulder would have brushed the door.
The single rail train bounced a couple of times, I looked down at my feet reorienting myself from the familiar fear taking residence in my stomach and mind. While trying to slow my breathing, looking at the floor of the train, I ALSO noticed the door had closed improperly and that the bottom part was off the track and didn’t CLOSE ALL THE WAY!!
I was looking straight down through a hole in the doorway I could pass my foot through as the ground was flying by. Absolute PANIC gripped my heart, my stomach and my thoughts.
I looked at Shannon and could feel sweat beading up on the back of my neck. It was at that moment she also noticed the door and seeing the look on my face, realizing what was happening to me, she grabbed ahold of my hand and forced me to grab the handrail and whispered softly, something to the effect of, “I’m ok, you’re ok and we are at Disney. What do you want to do tomorrow?” all while she smiled at me. I remember I couldn’t speak, I tried, nothing came out. I remember tears welling up in my eyes as I looked at her and she said, “We are almost there, hold onto me.” She took my OTHER hand and wrapped it around her waist. It moved me a few inches away from the door and that was alright by me. There we stood, pulling into our stop, holding on to each other in a crowded train car.
A younger lady sitting on the bench just below us commented, “You two are adorable, I hope my husband and I can look at each other like that someday.”
It was at that moment that I realized we looked like two ‘old’ people in love staring at each other, her smiling looking up at me and me staring down deeply into her eyes. The young lady never even saw the white knuckles on either of my hands.
It’s that moment I want to focus this article on. I’m a “tough guy.” I don’t ask for help from many and if I can’t do something on my own, I either learn to do it or go without it. At that moment, my instinct was not to cause panic but to look for help from the one person that I totally trust and I listened to her as I focused on her. She, in return, didn’t pass it off as “nothing,” she didn’t turn away, she pulled me in closer, spared my ego, whispered to me instead of barking at me and in the end we made it look like something else, we were a team … and we did it so well others noticed.
You cannot stop the fear from coming, it is designed in us as a defense mechanism, but you can control where you put your attention because of it.
Update: We have been to that rooftop a couple of times to see the fireworks since this incident; I may not be at the edge of the terrace but, I’m there, with my best friend.
Go take back your day!
