Chasing Fear Part 2
This is Part 2 of a two-part series. You can read Part 1 here.
#28: Go skydiving.
In a way, it was always coming back to this one, ever since I saw that Will Smith video. I’ve thought of going skydiving my entire life. My dad did it once, and I thought it sounded bonkers when I was younger, but somehow it kept growing in my brain.
Something I would never do.
Something I might do, but probably not.
Something I would consider if friends persuaded me.
Something I would do someday with others.
Something I was definitely doing on my own.
In the past few years, I’ve talked to more and more people who have done it. I decided early this year that this would be the year.
I thought there was a very real possibility that I’d get up there in that plane, look out the door, freak out, and nope my way right back to my seat, only to have to fly back down again in disappointment. I went to the whitewater center in Charlotte a couple years ago, and some friends/coworkers and I decided to jump off a tower. You were hooked to a line, and only had a couple seconds—if that—of freefall before the harness and line gradually caught you and lowered you the rest of the way to the ground. I waited on the steps to the top of the tower, wavering between terror and determination as we got higher and higher and the ground looked further and further away. We all discussed how we would jump in style: I decided I would put my hands on my hips and do a superhero stance on the way down.
I got to the edge of the. . . well, plank, for lack of a better word, all hooked up, with a strong system to guide me down. I looked out and realized we were above the tops of the trees. And that I was about to jump off a tower. The guy in charge counted down, “Three, two, one!” I leaned forward to jump off, yelled, “AH!” and backed right on up without even intending to. Neither one of us really knew what to do next. Finally, after what felt like long minutes, but according to the video was only seconds, I somehow I got myself together and flung myself off. I was so terrified, I grabbed the wire coming out of the back of my harness without thinking about it. My hands needed something to hold. Afterwards, I found out I had scared the guy at the top half to death because he thought I was going to try to undo the line. But I made it. And I whooped with sheer exhilaration before I even landed.
I didn’t want to repeat my moment of hesitation at the plane door. But I also reminded myself over and over of how elated I was at the bottom of that jump. How I would have done it over and over again if it hadn’t been closing for the night. How proud I was and how much I loved it.
I thought about inviting friends to go skydiving, even talked some about doing it with someone who was close to me earlier in the year, but by the time it rolled around, I wasn’t sure anyone would want to join me and I decided this was something I needed to do on my own. It was a 50 minute drive. When I glanced at the Maps app and saw I was only 4 minutes out, my stomach dropped. I needed more time to prepare. I wasn’t ready. Didn’t matter. I reminded myself that nothing great I’d ever done, had I ever felt 100% prepared for. Even if I’d done everything I could to get ready for it. In the end, it still required jumping when I wasn’t sure I was ready. Leaving for France on my own? I cried in the bathroom after getting through security. Starting a new life on my own? Didn’t have a clue what I was doing besides knowing it was going to be hard. Having a baby? DEFINITELY wondered what the heck I’d been thinking 9 months ago.
In the end, once I’ve decided I’m going to do something, I’ve found the best thing is to JUST GO. Whether it’s saying something hard to say (that used to be the worst, trying to get the words to come out) or walking into a room of strangers, or doing something crazy, I have to remind myself to JUST GO. The longer I’ve waited, hesitated, or even swallowed my intentions and backed away, the worse I’ve always felt. I bring that feeling to mind when I think about backing out of a decision now. Just start talking. Just start walking. Just start jumping. The rest will fall into place once you’re moving. It’s that moment of starting, of looking over the edge and imagining the fall that’s the worst.
Waiting was awful. Standing in a little room, watching a legal disclaimer video, I wondered again what on earth I’d been thinking. I didn’t want to die. This could actually kill me. There was no rope to catch me, and I would be falling from a MUCH higher height than that tower in Charlotte. I glanced at the girl next to me, and her face said the same thing. We started exchanging jokes and nervous laughter. Eventually, we sat outside. Her name was Emily and she had just turned 20 and was there for a belated birthday present. Her entire family (parents, grown siblings, nephews) was there with her, which I found beautiful. We joined people sitting on the benches outside and waited. By the time it was finally our turn to get ready, we were fast friends and her mom told me with a friendly smile that I was a part of their crew now. Everyone else there had people on the ground watching them. It honestly hadn’t even occurred to me to see if anyone would want to stand around for an hour plus while I skydived.
We got harnessed up. When we practiced kneeling at the edge of the doorway in the building to jump out—you know, into the hallway—my heart started racing. I sat on the wooden bench next to my new friend and we waited some more. I reminded myself to breathe deeply and settle into a place of calm. Years ago, there was a roller coaster at King’s Dominion that I decided to go on even though I was terrified (and I love roller coasters). I was on the edge of panicky as we waited to get propelled forward. But I breathed myself into a calm state, and it ended up being my favorite roller coaster ever. I decided I would go into that meditative state on the ride up. Then we heard the propeller of the plane, and that plan flew right out of my head.
We met our instructors and loaded up into a tiny plane that from a distance didn’t look like it could hold even four people. There was me, Emily, our instructors, her camera man, and two or three individual jumpers (it tells you a bit about my state of mind that I can’t remember). We lined up on two benches, our legs on either side of the seats. They rolled a plastic see-through door closed. The plane started taxiing, and my stomach dropped. That was when the jokes began.
“You ever feel like you’re forgetting something?” my instructor, Ryan, asked Emily’s instructor.
“Oh, yeah, all the time. Like right now,” he replied comfortably, a wry grin on his face.
Emily and I laugh-groaned.
Another jumper asked Ryan, “Did you take your medicine?”
“Yeah, 12 pills three times a day,” he replied.
Emily’s instructor chided, “NO, it’s THREE pills TWELVE times a day!”
“Oh, they gave me a month’s prescription. I took it all at once so I should be good for the entire month,” the camera man joined in with a smile.
And so on and so forth, effortless banter from these men who clearly thought nothing of throwing themselves tens of thousands of feet towards the ground.
I love the feeling when a plane leaves the ground and you first start to fly. I wait for it with excitement, ignore everyone around me, and grin whenever it happens. It’s one of the best feelings. Before I knew it, we were taking off. But this felt different—more intense. I don’t know if it was because the plane was smaller, or because I was hyper aware of the fact that soon I’d be in the air without it. I tried to enjoy it around my fear.
The jokes continued:
“People ask us all the time how we got into this occupation. We just kind of fell into it.”
“It has its ups and downs.”
Emily and I exchanged eyerolls and laughs. I was grateful, though. Whenever I had a moment, all I thought about was how much further and further the ground looked. It struck me, on the way up, how much is involved in a commercial flight. All the pomp and circumstance, preparation and thick glass. Here, there was no soft, polite ding of a seatbelt sign coming on, just a strap hooked to my harness. There were no tired, rehearsed flight attendant safety demonstrations. The prop was loud, the plane was loud; the only thing louder were the voices of our instructors. No cushy seats or in-flight snacks. No double-paned windows. It was us, a bit of glass, and the sky.
As we got higher, the instructors did pre-determined sequences to hook us to themselves and check all their gear. They talked us through what they were doing. The late afternoon sun shone on us. Down below, it was hot when you weren’t in the shade. It was golden up here.
Then, all too soon and also finally, they opened the door. A blast of icy wind slammed into us. I was vaguely grateful I’d kept my jacket on. The roar of air and plane grew exponentially. My heartrate doubled, maybe tripled. The world looked blue below us. That was all I could notice. Blue and VERY far away.
I remember the first time I rode in a plane. I was three, and we were going to visit my grandparents in California. I was fascinated with the patchwork of fields below us, with how small everything looked. I was vaguely afraid, because I knew that meant we were very high up, and I thought about falling and crashing. But I had a new Barbie and I was allowed to chew gum, and I was happy. Now, there was nothing between me and that patchwork.
The solo jumpers looked out and then started yelling and using hand motions to tell the pilot to slightly adjust his course. Somehow in my fear, I’d forgotten about the pilot, even though I think he was introduced to us at the start. Again, so unlike a commercial flight, he was right there, and gesticulating back at the jumpers. My eyes traveled to the red light on the wall by the door. I’d seen enough about skydiving to know about it. My brain slowed when it turned green. The next thing I knew, a jumper just kind of tumbled out of the plane, gracefully and intentionally, but still. . . he was there, and then, OH MY GOD THAT GUY JUST FELL OUT OF A PLANE. Like it was nothing. Emily and I both shrieked. There was definitely more fear in my scream.
The next couple of guys dropped like divebombing birds. I was in such a state that I didn’t even see Emily go; all I knew was that my instructor was inching me towards that door and that we were the last ones left. I couldn’t let myself not go. But also, I was thinking I couldn’t actually go over that edge. Ryan asked, “Are you ready to skydive?!” and I honestly was not sure what my answer was, but I said yes (after a pause) anyway.
We got to the door (holy s*** we’re right on the edge!) and that was the worst moment. I don’t know what I said out loud. My brain kind of turned off, had already kind of turned off. I focused on squatting the way my instructor was reminding me to squat, on making sure my feet wouldn’t get caught on the edge of the plane even though I really wasn’t sure I was going to do this. Then Ryan was rocking me back and forth gently, much more calmly than I’d imagined in the doorway to the hall. And the next thing I knew, before I could decide whether I was actually jumping or not, we were softly tumbling forward into the air and then gravity grabbed us, the world sped up, and we were plummeting.
Everything in my body seized up. My eyes clenched shut. I kept a death grip on my harness. Then I remembered I was supposed to press my hips forward and kick my feet back towards my instructor, and by the time I was done doing that, I realized my stomach wasn’t dropping. I opened my eyes. It had been only a couple of seconds at most.
The world was still blue below us. The wind was like nothing I’ve ever felt before, harder and more forceful than air has any right to be. I found myself trying to grin, but the wind shoved my mouth wide and made my lips flap wildly. My mouth immediately dried up and I tried to close it, but my lips couldn’t stay completely closed over my teeth. I’d done it, though!!! I’d jumped out! And just like Will Smith said, the moment of maximum danger, when you’re hurtling towards the earth with literally nothing slowing you down, was the moment of maximum bliss. I was no longer scared (well, maybe just a little). I would call it more a feeling of intensity, the sense that my body shouldn’t be doing this, than actual fear. We hurtled through space and I tried to catch my breath. I wanted to scream, but the wind just shoved everything back in. I managed a slightly painful, forced grimace.
Ryan signed for me to put my arms up, and then he took my hands and guided them left and right, which turned us as we free-fell. It was unbelievable, not that we were doing it (somehow my mind had already accepted the situation), but that that was all it took to turn.
Eventually, he guided my hand to the pull for the parachute and my freezing hand struggled to grip it for a moment before we yanked it. The harness caught me abruptly. The painful wind stopped and the world quieted.
Ryan asked how I was feeling, now that we could talk and hear again, and I whooped with joy. Elation took over. He talked me through safety checks and standing on his feet so he could adjust my harness to be less tight (part of me wondered if that was a great idea, since we were still falling through the air albeit more slowly, but most of me was strangely fine with it). I kept periodically letting out yells of joy. The hard part was over: it was suddenly peaceful now. I felt like I should be scared, but it didn’t feel like falling, and there was so much space still between us and the ground. It felt more like floating, suspended in the autumn air. He asked if I wanted to spin and showed me how to pull the cords to turn us. We wildly looped down, picking up speed. I loved the acceleration, but wondered if I might throw up from the turning. We chased Emily down. The ground was green and gold now, fields and trees stretching out below us.
Then we were swooping on around for our landing. I thought I would be scared again at this part. Watching people before us land, they had all seemed to be going too fast until the last second. But from the air, it didn’t feel that way, and I was focused on holding my legs up until Ryan called for me to drop them. We landed gently on our feet.
Standing on the ground again felt strange. My legs were weird, like when you get off a boat. My heart was still racing. I was still seasick from the spinning. But I couldn’t stop grinning.
I checked in with Emily, who was equally elated. It surprised our instructors to find out we’d just met. They assumed we’d come together. And to think I used to be more scared of strangers than of jumping out of an airplane.
What’s next? There are plenty of things left to do, and I don’t plan on doing them all on my own. I couldn’t have made it this far in this journey without a wonderful support system of friends. I’m so grateful for my non-blood family, the ones who didn’t choose to walk away, the ones who have shown me how love is supposed to be and what true support looks like.
Three years ago and some change, when I watched that Will Smith video, I had no idea how my life was about to change. How big of a drop I was standing on the edge of. I also wasn’t seriously considering jumping out of an airplane, and never could have dreamed that I would choose to do it with no one I knew alongside me. When I decided to make the leaps of the past three years, I had to remind myself of how I’d survived past jumps. I had to go when I didn’t feel quite ready. I had to do a lot of deep breathing and rely on the support of friends and strangers. I had to keep the end result in front of me. Those jumps, in the end though, were all worth it. Not easy, but good, and growing experiences every one.
What I was searching for was a feeling of freedom. I imagined it feeling weightless and unencumbered, worry-less. It turns out freedom is more complicated than that. Not bad, just different. When you’re falling, you don’t feel weightless. You’re very aware of the effect of gravity on your body—maybe more than ever in your life. But you learn to choose to be okay with that. To let go of what is supposed to be happening to your body, your life in that moment. To embrace the present moment because there’s literally nothing else you can think about (at least in skydiving; I can do all that sometimes in normal life). The potential consequences of your choices loom large, so worry-less isn’t the right word. But you know that your choices, and your choices alone, led you to this moment. Being able to say that is true freedom. It’s more complicated, but it’s better that way. Nothing can beat that feeling of having chased a fear down and sped past it on your own two feet, or at the speed of a human body falling out of a plane.
