Journal #2

And that’s when I came across it.  As I sorted out my summer pictures, I saw the familiar crooked smile, apprehensive look, and People-To-People lanyard and immediately reminisced.

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It was only 150 feet, but looking down over the edge of the mountain it seemed more like 1,050 feet.

The crisp New Zealand air ripped through me and stung my eyes.  Of course, none of us were wearing the right clothes for cliff repelling.  Who would’ve known that it would be winter in July?  (Certainly not 43 teenage delegates whose only concern was traveling across the world without their parents.)  I was climbing up the mountain in my tee-shirt, white Northface, and a pair of old, tattered jeans.  The temperature read something like 12 degrees Celsius.  Fresh fallen snow was still on the beaten paths of the mountain, and with every step I took, the snow crunched under my feet.  My heart skipped a beat as I finally realized that my life depended on a piece of rope and a helmet.

“I can’t do this.  Look how far that drop is!  They want me to lean over the edge for a picture?”  I yelled this to no one in particular.

I spent the whole day convincing myself that once I got to the top of that mountain onto the platform, I’d be able to come back down as easily as I trudged up.  But what I didn’t know was that I’d be suspended in midair with a mere rope.  My friends on the other hand didn’t look nearly as panicked as I.

“This is so totally awesome,” I heard Sheena shriek behind me.  “Gab, you okay?  You look sick.”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I lied.  There’s no way I was the only person who felt unnerved by the fact that in a minute I’d be throwing myself off the side of a mountain.

And that’s when the inevitable happened.

“Why are you crying?” Christina asked me.

“I d-don’t know.”  It was that instant that I realized, apparently, I was afraid of heights. But it felt so good to let everything out.

As I was being strapped in and roped up, one of the activity leaders guided me towards the platform.  I repeated the instructions in my head: Keep the balls of your feet on the platform but have your heels stick out the edge, then feed some rope while leaning back with your legs straight.  There were 150 feet of nothingness under me and I was supposed to lean back into it?

“You didn’t come all this way to watch the rest of us.”  This time the voice belonged to Courtney.  “Just don’t look down.”

I slowly moved my feet towards the edge of the platform and leaned back for the picture.  Blinded by the flash I started to make my way down.  Even though she said not to, I gazed down, but I wasn’t scared.  My fears washed away with the tears and my strengths finally saw the light.