The bold and the daring…
Originally published at Morbid Romantic. You can comment here or there.
This is what you see from my mother’s front yard, as well as from her backyard since it faces the side of her house:
So, I am inside eating a bagel with some coffee and my mother goes outside for a cigarette. Just your average morning here. All of a sudden, my mother pokes her head in and tells me to come outside and take a look. So, I put my bagel aside and walk out of the front door to join her. She points to the red cliffs on the horizon and says, “look there.” I do, but I see nothing and I tell her just this. So, she tries to help me zero in on what she is looking at and I finally see it… a tiny white dot that is moving just a little bit.
It takes me a moment to realize that this small moving white dot is a person. I go into the house and grab my camera since my camera has a zoom in function that will allow me to look at what that white dot is closer. Sure enough, it’s a small scaling down the side of the cliff with one of those harness thingys that you wrap around your waist and sit on like a sling so that you can kick off of the cliff/mountain as you go down.
You certainly don’t see these kinds of things in Virginia!
I’ve never done anything so daring before. My experience with ‘thrilling’ begins and ends with amusement park rides or not telling someone to slow down when they’re speeding. I’ve never broken a bone and my only stitches have come from having my tonsils out at age 16. I don’t do daring things like cliff scaling or bungee jumping or jet skiing. It’s not in my nature. I was raised to be very cautious. My parents were frightened to such an extent that I would get hurt that they created in me a great fear of accidents. I avoid them at all costs.
Still, I can’t help but feel like I am missing out. But, I can’t get past the fear and my own reservation to experience things. Besides, I’m not even athletic. I wouldn’t be able to do some of the things I see others do strictly because I lack the muscle and the energy level. I’ve always suffered from acute fatigue, so bad that a day out at the mall exhausts me to the point of physical illness. I don’t tell people of this, but it’s true.
But, I want to experience life before it’s gone. I want to be able to say that I lived, that I did something. I don’t want to spend my life always wondering what that distinct thrill of danger feels like.