On The Edge

When I visited London I had the chance to visit with someone who has kept me sane for the past year. I overloaded on classes and just about anything else I could in order to keep myself busy. I never thought about it because it's just what I do. I never thought that I might be going crazy because I never realized how close I was standing to the edge. I don't really like looking down. It scares me.


The past year of my life has been my walking too close to edge and then having multiple people pulling me back. They would watch me run myself down and then try to bring me back from the place I had put myself in. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that. I had a good year with the exception of the fact that I spent most of it with large black circles under my eyes and not eating very much. I didn't realize that I was on the edge until it was too late.

There are always different sorts of edges in our lives. They can be the edge of reason, the edge of time, the edge of hope. We come to edges when we realize them and also when we don't. Some days we get lucky and have someone to pull us back and other times we don't. There are also the edges that we want to look over and see the view. Those happen often enough, but we never seem to appreciate them when they come along. We just know about the edges we don't want to be at. We also don't seem to realize when we come to these ones.

There is help offered when we know where to look for it. Somehow though, there never seems to be enough help offered. Or at least not enough help offered when it is most needed. There are always waiting lists and not enough patience when people do turn to each other. I'm lucky because I have about ten people always waiting to pull me back from my edge. I'm lucky in a way that many other people aren't.

There are more people on the edge than we realize. We forget to look for a great many people when they seem to step away from us. We ignore those who don't reach out. We don't reach out to them.

I have ignored my edge for a really long time. I know that I have ignored and have not worried because I know I will be pulled back. I'm the lucky one though. There are far too many people who never get the same chance. There are so many people who don't get pulled back and simply walk over the edge. We need to be more aware of those who come close to their edges through stress, through problems, through simply unawareness. When we reach out to those on their edges we are more aware of our own edges. And so more able to help.