Epiphanies - Swing Phobia

For years now I have tried to figure out why I am afraid of swings. Yes, I mean the swing sets at playgrounds that all children love. I first started to really notice this problem during my summers working as a camp counselor. (Although, perhaps I could have picked up a bit more on the fact that while I would always ride any roller coaster in any given amusement park, I was deathly afraid of the “Yo-Yo.” That was that circular thing that went round and round with all the seats attached to it by chains. It was terrifying to behold. It looked like everyone was going to fly into one another! Oh the ridicule I endured from my high school friends...) My campers loved to swing, but they had to pretty much beg and bribe to get me to take part in pushing them, and even then it lasted about 2 minutes before I had to invent an excuse to move away. I did admit my fear to one camper because he was so persistent that I ran out of excuses. He teased me mercilessly. He was 8. I don’t know, but seeing the kids swinging next to other kids made me feel absolutely ill. I was convinced that the kid beside them was going to start twisting around in his swing or going from side to side and bang into my happy little camper. Why?

Hubby and I have been trying to figure this out for years. Had I fallen off of a swing? Did I tip one over? But I knew that didn’t matter. I’m not afraid of falling off or tipping over. I am afraid of the people beside me, and now I am afraid of the people, the BABIES, beside my son, because you never know when some mom might just go for a CRAZY push and fling her child completely off kilter, ramming that 6 month old drooler into Sam.

As I left the park today I called my parents to chat for the walk home. My Dad answered and asked how our afternoon at the park was. I explained that it had been cut a little short because Sam and I ended up between 2 other kids on the swings so I’d had to excuse us (I was actually pretty proud of the several minutes I toughed it out.) And I’ll be damned if he didn’t say, “Well yeah, you can’t stay there then.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well I would never swing next to anybody. They might get out of line and swing into me.”