"saut"

I have this fear. It causes my legs to shake. I break out in a cold sweat. I start to tear up. I imagine my own funeral, and then shrink back. My stomach feels strange. My palms are clammy.

I am terrified of heights.

Of course, it’s not really a fear of being in a high place. Rather, it is the view of a long way to fall, of rocks far below me and no firm wall between us. My sense of security is gone. There are no guardrails. I can rely only on my own sure footedness.

Last summer, four friends and I took a graduation road trip to my aunt’s house in Melpeque, Prince Edward Island in Canada. Its prime attraction is a waterfall, about 100 feet high that thunders into a crystal clear pool. All around the pool and down its rushing river are boulders large and small.

During a night of drinking I watched my cousins climb up the cliff them selves and jumped of the waterfall. My friends decided they really wanted to jump they begged me to jump along with them I knew there was no...