There’s this bridge that I drive over
on my way to my hometown,
and every time that I drive over it,
I get a full blown anxiety attack,
and have an existential crisis.
I’ve always been curious
as to why I feel this way
going over that bridge.
It’s happened hundreds of times in my life.
I always chalked it up
to being afraid of heights,
but today,
as I was driving home for Christmas,
I had a realization that it couldn’t be the fear of heights
that had me feel that way.
Fear alone
doesn’t make me feel like that.
This was something else.
Then,
I remembered a fact about the bridge
that I always seem to
forget.
That bridge
is the bridge around here
where people go
to jump off of.
It’s a suicide bridge.
It stands hundreds of feet
above the Deschutes River,
in a canyon,
in Central Oregon.
I remember going to this bridge,
and standing over the edge of it,
before my first fight,
so I could feel
overwhelmed with fear.
I was afraid of being afraid before the fight.
So I stood,
and looked down
until I got dizzy.
It was a sinking fear.
An overwhelming fear.
But looking back now,
it might’ve been all the suicides that had happened
right where I had stood.
When I drive over this bridge
on my way home,
it only last
about 7 seconds-
but I always get in my own head,
and it feels like minutes.
And with my thoughts,
the feelings follow.
I psych myself out
about that bridge
as I approach it.
But today,
I thought that maybe,
what I am feeling
is the energy
from all of those souls
that chose to jump.
What I feel,
going over it,
is
death
It’s:
illogical,
mystical,
absurd,
but,
unfortunately
in this moment
it feels
real to me.
-C.H.
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