Falling from a great height


i'm pressed against the side, trying to swallow my fear away, but it won't go. don't look down, i tell myself, but i can't help it. my eyes stray to the edge, and i immediately wish they hadn't. below me is a drop of at least fifty feet. if i fell, i would die; my bones would be crushed and my spirit would be gone. i almost can't swallow at the thought. i feel sick. suddenly i'm frozen and i can't move.

"cass, let's go," urges jack.

"i... i can't." my eyes were glued to the ground below. "i can't move." i turned to stare at him in horror. "i'm going to die. jack, i'm going to die! i can't move. i can't move!"

"it's ok, just relax," jack quickly tells me, his eyes nervous. "it's going to be ok. you're going to make it, cass--i promise."

i shake my head, starting to cry. "i can't move, i can't move," i repeat over and over, paralyzed by my fear.

"cass, it's ok. you're going to make it."

no no no.

"cass, come on."

"i can't move," i whisper. "i can't move."

"cass, you have to."

i'm afraid if i move even a step i'm going to plunge to my death. i can't, not yet. i was too young. i... i couldn't do it! i was going to fall!

"you have to," i hiss to myself.

i move one foot forward. i hadn't died yet. come on, you can do it. don't look down. i closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and took another step. i was almost there.

"that's the way, cass," jack encourages me. "you're almost there. good job."

and then i feel it--solid ground. i'm so filled with relief that i sink into the cross, closing my eyes and not wanting to open them ever again.

"you did it, cass," jack smiles down at me. "you did it."

• • •

I don't know if you knew this, but I have a morbid fear of heights. Exactly what happened to Cass in my story happens to me. Sometimes I can do it if I just force myself to do it and I don't look down and nobody talks about how high up it is. (I have a story about that...)

It's especially bad when I'm walking across walkways with glass sides. Oh. My. Gosh. Somebody just kill me now. At first I'll be thinking, "Hey, that looks so cool..." and start walking across, and then I'll get halfway across and realize it's pretty much like having no railings because you can barely see them. Then I realize how far down it is, and I freeze, and I feel like I can't move. I cling to the railing and close my eyes and wish I was on the other side.

I'm so bad with heights, I almost feel sick when I watch people I know go up really high. And rock climbing? Oh my word, I've gone rock climbing like twice in my entire life in the same week, and I almost died. Literally. I got so freaked out that I had to rely on someone else to hold me. It didn't feel safe. I felt like I was going to go plummeting to the ground. (My partner was pretty patient with me...) I finally got the right speed propelling down and started feeling more comfortable leaning back into the harness and the rope, but it was still freaky.

(It only got a little fun on the second day after I'd gotten used to it, and then it was just more of the challenge of making it to the top instead of going up to the top of the easiest climb again and again to get used to it. =P)

Are you scared of heights? Do you know someone who is? Have you ever just felt yourself freeze and not ever want to move again?

Be a hero,
Anna

P.S. I'm wanting to [hopefully] change my pinterest username soon, so if you have any more ideas, tell me soon--I want to be picking as soon as possible. :) (I'm thinking that since beahero was taken, I'm going to skip all the hero stuff [as sad as that sounds... *sniffsniff*] and do something like letyourfearflyfree, since it means so much to me.)

23 comments:

  1. I don't really like heights... but you know, I guess no one really enjoys being up high... but I can handle it. I'm a wee bit of a dare-devil. I will do crazy things, like go on the superman roller coaster at six-flags (though, since you seem so deathly afraid of heights, I wouldn't recommend it to you... but you know if you want too.) and it was fun. :)

    I have different fears. Like stingrays. I can't stand those things! I refused to touch one when we were at a fancy aquarium place in Florida. Ugh!

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    1. Oh my goodness, no, I can't do roller coasters. :D

      Oh, ugh, I don't know if I'd want to touch one of those, either... =P

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  2. Oh yes, I have totally done that before. We were on a hike (this wasn't high up) and we were walking along a river on the side of a cliff (the cliff was above us, we were just walking along the bottom when the walkway suddenly got really skinny. There was a crack in the walkway with water rushing underneath and the other side was a little farther away than I was comfortable. It was crazy. My dad tried to help me but I was freaking out and started crying and then I got over and it was nothing :P.
    There you have it. My freaking-out-while-on-a-hike story. :)
    Here are some ideas:
    befearless
    fearlessforGod
    iamahero
    Godismyhero
    beaheroinChrist
    Okay, I realize that some of those won't work because they have too many characters, but maybe they'll give you an idea!
    Christina

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    Replies
    1. Oh, wow! Pretty scary....

      Thanks for the ideas:)

      Delete
  3. I'm not that scared of heights, but I know a lot of people who are. Though, I agree with you on rock climbing - it's so scary! :P

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  4. Hey, Anna, me again commenting on this lovely post, letting you know that I would love, love, love to do a Q and A with you. :) Just use the contact page on my blog to e-mail me, and I will answer all your questions.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. well, blah... my contact thingy isn't working. is there any way for me to contact you for the Q&A? sorry for the confusion.

      Delete
    2. Through comments (or google+?) should work! :) I'll just post the comments on your blog where I asked the question before. :)

      Delete
    3. Hmm... I can't find it... wanna do it somewhere else on your blog, then? :) (Or on my blog, or one of my blogs, I don't care... whatever works best:))

      Delete
    4. It doesn't matter to me... you can email me at butterflyeyes14@gmail.com to send me the questions if you so desire. but if you can think of something better to do... idk. Let me know. :)

      Delete
    5. Well, my email is for designing, so I'd rather do it here...

      Delete
    6. okay then... you could ask me the questions on here I suppose, and then once you post the Q&A you could delete the comments... or keep them, whatever. :)

      Delete
    7. or you can ask me on my blog, I don't mind which post, so.... yeah. It's up to you.

      Delete
    8. One more comment; Am I the only one here who find's this completely hilarious? :)

      Delete
    9. hahaha no, I'm finding this QUITE funny we're having a normally "email" conversation over comments. :D hehe Thanks so much for working with me, Hannah. :) I really hope that your pro blogging career goes awesomely. :) Okey dokey... I suppose since I have a new post up, not anybody (except for us, of course...) is going to be reading on here, so let's just do it here, OK? :) I'll just do the questions and then you can fill them out. (the nice thing about doing it this way, is that if we want to rephrase a question it works that way =P)

      Okey dokey, not quite sure how long this is going to get, hopefully I won't need another comment...

      Just a sec, before I start, I wanted to post this when you've got your other site up, that way we can have as many people as possible go and visit your other blog. :) (Because seriously, Hannah? You have great things to say.) So, I'm not sure what your blog's going to be called and when you're going to set it up, but I guess I'll leave those questions out of the Q&A...

      Another thing real quick. Do you have google+? Because if you did, we could do the Q&A over a chat, which might be easier...

      What're your thoughts? :)

      Delete
    10. Okay, that all sounds great, and yes, I do have a G+ account; https://plus.google.com/u/0/109496350120560115265/posts

      You can start a chat, and I'll answer, but you can post the questions down here too to make sure I get them.

      Delete
    11. I was thinking the reason we would do chat is that one of your questions might lead me to another one. :) (But afterwards I can put the questions here, if you want. ;))

      Delete
    12. Okay, you can go ahead and do the chat thingy then. :)

      Delete
    13. OK, I've added you from my google+ account (I'm called Andria Dragorn....), but I don't think you've added me back, and we can't chat until you do. So. :)

      Delete
    14. Alrighty, I sent you a message a couple days ago, but I don't know if you've seen it.

      Delete

be nice ∞ be kind ∞ be a hero

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