Fulfulling A Dream: Skydiving

Skydiving is one of those things that I have always had mixed feelings about. I have always thought it would be really cool to go skydiving but I have a fear of falling so the idea of jumping out of a plane is utterly terrifying. I have also thought it would be really cool to experience free fall and to be able to look down on the Earth below. And then my thoughts go back to falling...what if the parachute doesn't work? What if I die? And then I convince myself that skydiving just isn't worth the risk.

Back in March I threw Andy a surprise party, in executing said surprise party I convinced Andy that he was going skydiving. In case you missed that story you can read it here. Recently I felt like it was time to conquer a fear, cash in Andy's birthday present, and get the skydiving bug out of both of our systems--skydiving is something Andy has always wanted to do. On September 6th we made the leap and what a leap it was.

The night before we went skydiving I couldn't sleep. I tossed and I turned and I dreamed about falling out of the sky. It wasn't a very peaceful night for me.

The morning of our adventure I could hardly eat. I was so nervous.

As we were driving to the airport we were listening to the radio and it seemed as if almost every song was about dying or falling. Andy just looked at me and we decided to keep the radio off the rest of the trip. When we got close to the airport I told Andy that if I died I wanted to be an organ donor--that kind of freaked him out a little bit. It was at that moment he realized that there is a large risk associated with skydiving.

When we arrived at the airport we checked in and signed our lives away and then we waited. We waited for what felt like forever, the longer we waited the more my anxiety built. Eventually they called our names and we went and took a brief skydiving safety/instruction class and then we waiting some more.

While we waited we met a few other people who were going to be skydiving that day including some BYUI students. We spent quite a bit of time talking to a woman named Gina and her husband. I would guess that Gina was in her 50s or 60s. She told me that skydiving was something she had always wanted to do so she was doing it today and her husband was there to watch. I sure enjoyed talking with Gina--she helped calm my nerves a bit.

Before too long they called mine and Andy's names to go suit up. Next thing I know I'm boarding a plane and jumping out of it at 13,000 feet (that's higher than Mt. Hood). As I looked out the door I saw a commercial airliner flying just lower than us--it was kind of a weird thing to see. Beside that there really wasn't a lot of time to think about what I was doing, it all happened so fast.

 

 

I absolutely loved the feeling of free fall, it is such a cool experience!The parachute was a different story for me, all of the banked turns made me nauseous.I remember sitting there watching other people coming in with their shoots open and thinking that looks peaceful, oh the irony. In case anyone was wondering, I did throw up after we were on the ground. My friend Gina threw up too so it made me feel a little better.

Andy loved the entire experience and can't wait to go again. I'm okay waiting a little awhile to go again though.

I still can't believe I jumped out of a plane. Crazy, right?