You know that feeling you get when you’re in a car and you voom over a hill and it feels like your stomach is falling out of your body? That’s how I imagined flying would feel, noticing your heart beat more in your life than you ever had. The funny thing is that I hate that feeling, it mainly happens when I am off the flat ground. The feeling of death, staring you right in the face waiting for you to over step the bonds of humanity, to grab your soul and take it far from your body.

From the moment my parents took me up to some natural landmark that we had to use a ski lift to get to, I knew I hated heights. The irony of it all makes me laugh. Life gave me what others would consider a gift, and I hate myself for it. I can fly. I can reach and soar to heights unimaginable to the human race.

I could save people from falling, from crashing planes, I could be a hero. But this is what I am left with, nothing but a paralyzing fear. I feel like scum of the Earth every time I watch Superman save Lois Lane from falling to her untimely death. Because I know I could do it, if I could get over this, this fear.

I have tried before I really have. I try to jump, knowing my body would catch my fall. That I wouldn’t meet death at the end of that jump, no, I would walk away without a scratch. Just like I had as a kid, you remember that ski lift from earlier? Why I’m so terrified of heights? I fell. I fell from the lift miles in the air. I should’ve died, but I didn’t. And I try to convince myself it’s a miracle every day. But no child should ever have to let their parents believe they are dead so that the FBI or some other agency doesn’t experiment on me.

Life gives us these strange opportunities, for others it’s a simple meeting in a public place, a moment where everything becomes clear, or maybe even just getting out of your house at a certain time and getting somewhere just in time to save someone. But for me, I don’t get these simple everyday things. When and where my opportunity will come, is a mystery. Will I be ready for it? Will I be the person I want, no wish, to be? Can I play my cards right and find a way to get over this fear?

If I die I hope it will not be because I let this fear control my life. To stop me from my full potential, to save the people who need to be saved the most. Don’t let this be you, I think as I fall from the top of the bridge. The wind is picking up and I feel myself floating inches above the river. Is this irony? My powers dangling right in front of my face, but I am doomed to never be able to reach out and grab this “amazing” gift.

Please, then the water envelops me in its arms, almost telling me everything will be alright. For once in my life it seems like everything will be alright.