A Moment on the Edge

This is another one of those things I've been hesitant to write about...

In January of 1969 we were still living in that apartment on Camino Del Sol in La Jolla - and I was still attending La Jolla High School... Yeah - that was my personal nightmare. Most days I either stayed home or took a stiff drink before getting on the bus... I needed it :-)
I pretty much kept to myself back then... Mom had her own circle of "interesting" friends. It wasn't hard to find people who were into astrology, numerology, UFOs and the paranormal in San Diego at the time - and they adored my mother... Karina was still doing the Scientology thing. She was involved with a number of guys and was taking pretty much whatever drugs she came across. (Except for those that required a needle - she wouldn't go there.) ... And - as usual - I was just along for the ride...

Mom and Karina would fight about anything and everything and every once in a while I got drawn into it... One evening there was a huge argument. I no longer remember what it was about but I do remember that some really nasty things were said and I was deeply hurt. I simply couldn't handle it any more so I walked out the door...

I had always envisioned that I would go to college and/or be a rock star and marry a wonderful woman and have a great life... But at that point I woke up every morning wishing I was still asleep... I could not think of a single thing in my life that was going the way I thought it should... I was doing poorly in school - I had no friends - and I'd all but stopped playing the guitar (a huge mistake)... The gap between where I was and where I wanted to be seemed insurmountable and it was only getting wider with every passing day.
But the worst part was the uncertainty. It had been so long since there was any real stability in my life and every change just made things worse. Unless you suffer from anxiety or depression I don't think you can fathom just how extremely painful that uncertainty is... If you did you would never again question how people can end their own lives - you would do almost anything to make it go away...

And that's how I was feeling as I headed up the "coast walk" along the La Jolla cliffs and sat down on a rock ledge jutting out over the cove... I was watching the waves smash into the rocks below - all I needed to do was lean forward a couple of more inches and the pain would go away. Yeah - it might be replaced with a different kind of pain - or it might not. But at least everything would be different...

Then I heard a woman's voice behind me say "Young man... Are you alright?"

I turned around to find an elderly couple standing behind me. They had been taking a late night walk along the cliffs and noticed me "on the edge".
A lot went through my mind as I formulated my response... I was taken aback by the fact that a couple of total strangers had cared enough to ask. It instantly changed my perspective... I told them that I was OK - I just had a lot on my mind...
After a bit of back and forth they went on their way. I sat there and watched the waves in the moonlight for a couple of more minutes (it was really quite beautiful) and headed home - where mom and sis acted like nothing had happened :-)

It was a moment of extreme selfishness. You would never "go there" if you allowed yourself to think about how it would impact those around you. And thanks to those two strangers I never got a chance to find out how it would have ended...

I was seriously shaken over having allowed myself to get so close to the edge and I vowed never to take anything that seriously again... And I ended up with that wonderful life I thought was hopelessly out of reach at the time...

Well - not the "rock star" part - but all the rest of it :-)