Too Close to the Edge

This week's walk goes w-a-a-ay back in my childhood, all the way to the time before I was allowed out of the yard. Yes, back before I turned 30. Just kidding. Sort of. You must understand that as an only child I had overly protective parents. When I was about 7 they removed the restriction because they realized it was a contradiction to allow their child to make her way to the bus stop alone but not to one of the other five houses on the street to play with neighborhood children. All I remember is that it was a hard-fought battle and I bore one of the scars on my backside. I'm talking figuratively, not literally. My parents were overprotective, not abusive.

We moved into the house where my parents still live soon after my second birthday. At the time, the neighborhood was considered out in the country, which isn't the case now since a major interstate passes nearby, but back when the house was new the scenario was similar to that found in the first few pages of Virginia Lee Burton's book, The Little House.

The stay-in-my-own yard rule was not popular with me once I reached the "mature" age of say, 6 years old, since I was totally dependent upon children who were allowed to roam to come over to play. I wasn't permitted to go over and knock on their doors. There were 4-year-old twin girls who lived on the street and we played sometimes. I was jealous of their freedom. And I hated waiting for them to take pity on me. If they got a better offer they would leave, but I was not allowed to go along.

At this time the road was unpaved and the gravel would get thrown into the yard. I remember that the boundary between yard and road was sometimes blurred into a really, truly "gray area" like we theorize so much about. But there was a boundary of sorts and a rule that went with it: cross it and pay the consequences.

One day I was sitting close to the road tossing gravel and feeling sorry for myself. This led to the only spanking I ever remember receiving, not the only spanking I ever received, but the only one I remember.

Evidently I was sitting too close to the road and my defiant attitude was showing whether or not I was actually across the boundary. I'm not sure now of all the details. All I know is that one minute I was sitting there and the next thing I knew my dad had come outside, swooped me up, and taken me inside for a spanking.

I wasn't old enough then to know that rules are designed for protection. I also wasn't old enough to figure out the lesson, but later it came to me what was being taught. As I matured I was often tempted by things that were not really wrong, but were like the gravel in the gray area. The thought would then occur to me that playing around the edge might not be such a good idea because my FATHER was watching me and He might be judging the intent of my heart even if I wasn't breaking any hard and fast rules.

I must remind myself often: My FATHER is watching. He wants me to be safe. Get back from the edge.