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 any 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 rhythm 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. However, I did decide to change my ritual and walk with the girls to the monkey bars. Nothing  more.

 First Linda Dennis 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 and her 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 Davis and before she began to climb she looked at the monkey bars as if studying 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 going to do it.”