Hold On

It stretched to the heavens.

At 10 years old, that tree was my sanctuary. I didn’t have a ton of friends in elementary school. I hated the bus ride home.

So every day, I’d come home, put my backpack in the dirt, and scurry up, up, up my favorite tree.

One of the trees next to our log cabin in the woods had a solitary branch poking out maybe six feet off the ground. By running full speed, planting a foot on the trunk and extending my arms miles above my head, I could make the leap. Were you to walk by my house between March and November of that year, you’d find me on there — hands on the branch, back to the ground, head in the clouds.

A fall afternoon, I sprinted to my tree as usual. I grabbed the lowest branch. I wrapped around it like a monkey. And then,

*CRACK*

I still remember the splinters flying from the trunk of the tree as it fell away. I hung, suspended forever in midair until:

*WHAM*

My back collided with the Earth.

For a long time I didn’t move. I stared up at the tree, still clutching what I’d been holding. That branch was a sure thing. Day after day, no matter what, it was there.

How could it just fall apart?

Despite the disaster, I am still in the habit of clinging to things. They always break.

High school diploma:

*CRACK*

First girlfriend:

*CRACK*

Follower count:

*CRACK*

The affirmation of others:

*CRACK*

Each one of them disintegrated in my hands and left me, once more, falling toward a very hard landing.

Do you know the feeling?

Oh wait, there’s something I forgot to tell you. A week before The Fall, Mom spotted me dangling out of my favorite tree. She looked up at me, head tilted back to make sure she had my attention.

“You have to be careful hanging on a branch like that,” she said. “It might not be able to hold you forever.”

I don’t have ten tips for you today. I couldn’t even muster a catchy headline. I am sorry. Tomorrow I might.

Today, I just have a story about a boy clinging to things he shouldn’t for far too long.

— TB