Day 63

Background: I don't like heights.  I can't stand on the top of a mountain without my heart racing or without feeling like the entire mountain, which has been there for many many years, is going to crumble.  I also don't like tall buildings, bridges or cliffs.  I just can't.  And what makes it worse is that I want to not be scared.  I want to be more like my sister and John, going right to to edge (well, maybe they are a little too fearless, I'll take 2 feet from the edge) of the mountain or standing on a glass floor that's up in the world's tallest free-standing building (the CN Tower...well it was the tallest when we were there).  But I can't.  It's not quite a phobia but I get pretty petrified.  Literally.  When I was in Colorado visiting John, we went to two mountains who's elevations were over 14k.  There were points where John was walking towards the edge, up and down rocks boulders, and I wanted to follow, but my feet were honest to goodness stuck to the ground and my brain would not let my legs move me in any direction other than towards safety.  Some call it phobia, some call it survival of the fittest (or smartest). 

That being said, I was making my way up to a new area in Cambridge today and came upon something that I never thought would terrify me.  An escalator.

This view is of the escalator going down.

This isn't just any escalator.  This thing was mortifying.  I walked off of the T and was greeted by an escalator.  No one looks up when you first get on an escalator.  But when we started climbing very steeply, I did.  Oh how I wish I didn't.  This thing was a good 3 stories long and I don't even want to think of the pitch of it.  To summarize how my trip up and down the escalator (while going up was so much worse), I looked at my hands at one point and I was gripping the handrail so hard that my knuckles where white and I was leaning forward so I didn't fall backwards.  I do not like heights...or this T stop.