sweet potato pie & shut my mouth

not too far from my house is a dramatic sweeping bridge. it's an architectural marvel. it's a tourist attraction. it's beautiful and it's deadly. a couple weeks ago a high school girl leapt from it and while there's not too much certain in this world, you can pretty much bank on the fact that if you drop 44 metres through the air, you aren't going to live to tell about it. she was by no means the first leaper nor will she be the last.

you won't read about it in the paper. it's sort of an open secret around here that folks jump off that bridge with a fair amount of frequency, but the authorities don't want to give any sad folks any bright ideas. i mean, if you've seen the bridge, it's not like you would not be alerted to the possibilities, but hearing about someone actually pulling off the feat can instill a different level of determination in a confused brain.

i've been in a car on the bridge and it's thrilling. i've also been on foot on the bridge and that scared the living hell out of me. i hated it. the barrier between road and air is markedly insufficient. it's relatively low, to allow those in cars a dramatic view of a sweeping vista. i distinctly remember feeling like one false move and i'd be over the edge, drifting, falling, plummeting, down all those metres of air for all those seconds of regret before the bottom.

i don't get dizzy when i climb a ladder. i enjoy the skyride and the rolly-coaster. i like to climb trees. i am not afraid of heights in a crippling way. i have heard, though, that a fear of heights is actually a fear of self -- a fear of poor impulse control. i am not afraid i will fall. i am afraid i will jump.

weird.

it's not that i want to hit bottom. not that at all. it's that i want to do that thing that's all woo-hoo! lookit me! watch this! and then blam, before you know it you've ridden the skateboard off the roof onto the trampoline, bounced off and landed on the concrete porch with a broken collar bone and a mouth full of blood.

i've been a pedestrian on that bridge, so i've faced that fear and lived to tell about it, and i ain't got nothing left to prove in that particular category, thankyouverymuch. check that one off the list. i was on there and did not jump... that time. who wants to go back and find out if they'd jump the next time? jeezumpete, count me out.

but what about those poor pitiful people who go up there planning purposefully to plunge? sigh. what makes that happen? i mean, i understand "sad" and i understand "really sad" and "not getting out of bed all day sad" but a sad that is worth dying for, i just don't get that. maybe your life is all crap, but at least you know what you've got. maybe you don't want to face it, maybe you want to sleep, but just chucking it all over for the unknown? hell, there's an excellent chance it's going to be worse out there, and once you're dead, well you've kind of played the trump card and where you gonna go from there?