skydiving

it all started out on a girls night at C's house.

L said, 'hey i'm going skydiving for my birthday.'
i say, 'hey, i've been wanting to go again.'
L: 'you wanna go? my friend's mom is an avid skydiver and she's hooking me up."
B: 'sure, i'm in!
L: 'anyone else? lets all go.'

and that's pretty much how it came to be that 5 girls drove to connecticut on 4/26 to jump out of a plane...

but there's really nothing like it which makes it somewhat hard to describe when people ask, "well how was it?" actually i find that a hard question to answer in general. it's so broad, where does one begin?

lemme try.
picture it:

i jump into a suit that makes me look like a mechanic, 'give me a wrench C!'

getting on the plane you wonder what the hell you're doing and why. the further up you climb, the smaller objects on the ground seem, the more you think about your life and things you've yet to do. though i will say that there are worse ways to go then while skydiving. i thought about how lucky i am to have done as much as i have thus far. but as we climb to 4,000 ft and the 'funjumper' went out and was swept away abruptly by the atmosphere...THAT'S when the real fear kicks in and you want to cry 'mommy' and get back on the ground which, of course, isn't possible (at least not for someone with as much pride as me, if i go skydiving, i'm skydiving). when you watch someone else fall out of a plane and get taken away by the wind, it's not something you forget. my feet and legs start to tingle with a combination of general discomfort from my sitting position, fear, and more fear. i also thought i'd lose my sneakers in the air and kill some unfortunate person down below. i hold on to the hand grip with my right hand envisioning some grave mishap where i just fall out of the plane by accident and tried to look away from the open door, just a few feet in front of me on my left as the plane climbed higher and higher. "we'll be up in another 5 minutes," he says. and i thought, 5 minutes is an eternity, get me out now! luckily, my tandem, Mike has almost 7500 jumps under his belt and knows how to distract newbie jumpers. he pointed out the sights, "hey, there's UConn, there's Springfield, Mass., there's Harftord, and on a clear day you can see Manhattan." i say a combination of, "wow, that's cool, wow, awesome, so cool," in an effort to SEEM calm because god forbid I show fear. i even tried asking questions. my hands are clamming up and it's cold but we finally get to 10,500ft and move ourselves toward the door, i have to toss my legs over and the wind takes them to the right. i think my heart is about to jump out of my chest. he makes some final adjustments on the straps, i feel like my breath is being taken away (cue the song) and out we go. i do my best to keep my back arched and legs back as we practiced. but i don't really think i breathed at all during the free fall, the wind was hitting my face, i felt it contorting, my mind was racing at the speed of the free fall (about 140 mph i think)if not faster but it moved so quickly i had no idea what thoughts they were. i don't even recall seeing anything. mike said that i should look up and try to find the plane in my vision to get a sense of how quickly we were falling away but i couldn't. and then it was over, the parachute came out, i don't think i even had time to scream/yell. (the first time i jumped, in Interlaken, i distinctly remember yelling for most of the free fall.) after we started floating around that i start yelling a combination of, "ahhhhh! that's awesome! ahhhh! wooohooo! ahhhhh!" mike asks me how i feel and i say it was great. we do a few intense spins and twirls, he lets me steer a bit and a few minutes later we get back to solid ground. i don't know if this is the case for most people who skydive but for me, it's the anticipation, the flight up, and the free fall that make it all worthwhile.

i find myself to be a fairly calm and mellow person and perhaps that's why i like to do things that stimulate my senses. the added bonus was how this entire event came to be.i mean, it's not like we're all best friends from elementary school who made a pact to do this at a certain age. it was completely random.

now, i have a feeling girls night will be an institution to be reckoned with.