When I was a little kid, I had this intense, hysterical fear of balloons.
More accurately: It wasn't the actual balloons themselves I was afraid of, but rather, what would happen if I let go of one. Nothing could strike greater fear into the small heart of my preschool aged self than the threat of seeing one's balloon, one's favorite balloon, only balloon, generously gifted by one's mother, precariously tied to the plastic handle of a Grand Union shopping cart, drift vulnerably, permanently, into the sky. If I was bought a balloon at the grocery store, I would insist that my mom double and triple knot the ribbon around my wrist, then I'd shriek with anxiety until we made it to the car, where the sound of taught latex against the carpeted car roof soothed my frayed nerves.
I was a high strung, anxious child. If the Jewish Jason Schwartzman-esque neurotic stereotype came in a WASPy flaxen-haired 5-year-old model, that neurotic would be a younger Alex Hart. Over the following decade and a half, that anxiety would be invested in a number of more rational but still grossly exaggerated fears--bad skin, weird unflattering haircuts, getting dumped, getting fat, getting rejected from college. But even when I was blissfully un-self-conscious, I was wrought with despair over the balloon: a universal symbol of joy and celebration.
Around my third birthday, my mom was trying to jam a bunch of latex balloons into a car that had been sitting in a parking lot in August for an hour, and 3 or 4 of them exploded on contact with the car's roof. I couldn't deal. I hurled myself to the floor, pounding the seat in hysterics. What waste! What squandering! What abuse! They were mine and they were so vulnerable and so fragile and now they are gone! It was too much for my little self to handle.
Eventually, after spending too many neighborhood parties consoling a wailing me after I watched a balloon amble off into the sky above our condo courtyard, my mother nixed balloons at my birthday altogether.
Anyway so the point of my story is this: today a little girl got on the 6 train, probably around 3 or 4, wearing a pink windbreaker and pink socks and clutching a fat pink balloon. And she was screeching with fear that her balloon would "float away." She clenched it against her chest with her little fingernails, and her mother advised her not too hold it to tightly or else it could pop. This made her more hysterical; I empathized immediately. "Don't worry," her mother cooed. "We're on the train now, there's no where for the balloon to go, see?" And she wiggled the thing out of her daughters' arms and the entire train watched it wobble slowly to the roof of the car and rebound lightly off the ceiling support bar.
Basically, my fears were a hell of a lot more justified than that kid's.
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