You're not alone. Believe me when I tell you this. This has been a rough stretch, even before COVID things were running on the bare edge of disaster, and then e

You're not alone. Believe me when I tell you this. This has been a rough stretch, even before COVID things were running on the bare edge of disaster, and then everything disintegrated. I'm on one of those people who think about the single bullet cure when I'm shopping for groceries, so I've built up a little cabinet of mental tricks to keep it from happening until I'm good and ready. Tad Friend's "Jumpers" (a long piece about people ending their lives from the Golden Gate) has kept me on this side of the Great Gate several times now over my forty-something years on this planet. I still read it a few times a year.. Specifically, the following passage: https://archive.is/oy2Nd#selection-811.0-815.396 https://archive.is/oy2Nd#selection-811.0-815.396 Survivors often regret their decision in midair, if not before. Ken Baldwin and Kevin Hines both say they hurdled over the railing, afraid that if they stood on the chord they might lose their courage. Baldwin was twenty-eight and severely depressed on the August day in 1985 when he told his wife not to expect him home till late. “I wanted to disappear,” he said. “So the Golden Gate was the spot. I’d heard that the water just sweeps you under.” On the bridge, Baldwin counted to ten and stayed frozen. He counted to ten again, then vaulted over. “I still see my hands coming off the railing,” he said. As he crossed the chord in flight, Baldwin recalls, “I instantly realized that everything in my life that I’d thought was unfixable was totally fixable—except for having just jumped.”