Skydiving. Is. Fun.

That sounds really obvious, doesn’t it? What I mean to say is that it’s fun in a way I didn’t at all expect, and not fun in the way that I did. I jumped yesterday, and at the time, it really didn’t seem as fabulous as everyone said it was going to be, so I was a little disappointed, but man … the feeling stays with you. And that’s what’s cool about it.

So here’s the full story:

(I’m all pumped from the wicked-radness of it all, so I might go on awhile. Consider yourself warned.)

I was supposed to dive two weeks ago to celebrate my birthday but the weather wasn’t good so the trip was postponed. But yesterday was the big day.

The most striking thing about it was that it was a day filled with surprises. The first being that those little airplanes don’t make me feel airsick the way a commercial jet does. The next: when you’re sitting in short rows along the floor of a wee plane, it’s almost impossible not to imagine that you’re the air force or something, which makes you feel incredibly lame and super cool at the exact same time. And finally, the canopy ride, which I thought would be fabulous, kind of sucked.

Don’t get me wrong – the whole thing was FUN.

It was fun to realize that I wasn’t going to be scared in the plane. The other first timers around me seemed visibly terrified, but I just felt like I was waiting to go on a roller coaster ride. I guess I just wasn’t imagining that anything could go wrong – or that it was even real. That’s growing up in video game culture for you. The only really scary moment caught me just when I was sitting at the plane’s open door with my feet hanging out. And at that point, there’s nothing I could do but jump, so I didn’t have time to dwell on it.

My free fall lasted somewhere between 30-45 seconds (phew) but then the chute opened and the rest of the ride was, frankly, a bit crap. Between the sudden jolt when the parachute opened, which made my stomach lurch (and barfing in mid-air is not something I want to experience) to the harness digging into my thighs in a most unpleasant way, the second half of the jump was sort of a bummer. As for the free fall, at the time, it was hard to focus on enjoying it. I just kept thinking to myself “okay, arms crossed, ankles crossed, knees up, now arms out … gosh, I hope I’m not drooling” and by the time I got my wits about me, we were riding smooth.

The wicked rad thing about it was that even though the whole thing was over really quickly, the free fall feeling has not only lasted almost 24 hours … it’s intensified and gotten way more enjoyable. In fact, having had a day to think about it, I now have to say that skydiving basically rocks. The free fall feeling – sort of this vaguely terrifying, stomach-bottomed-out sensation that makes you want to laugh – hasn’t gone away yet. I guess it’s just exhilaration or something, but I never really realized what it was supposed to feel like before.

So the bottom line is that I liked it a lot and I think I’d like it better if I continued to do it, but I doubt I’ll go again anytime soon, if ever. Seems like something you enjoy more as you get accustomed to it, but I think it’s too expensive to take up. Plus, I don’t think I fit in well in the adventure seekers community. No white dreadlocks, no drugs, no Australian accent.

Sigh.
If there’s anything I’ve learned from all this, it’s that I could SO totally be a spy.

Goose!

Jen

Me, in the airplane.

P.S. 2018-05-21: The skydiving experience recounted above was a surprise birthday present. My ex (my then-partner) drove me out into the countryside beyond Vancouver without telling me where we were going. I remember thinking ‘horseback riding?’ until we actually pulled into the dive place. I didn’t want to do it, but my social anxiety about looking like a loser who didn’t want to do it made me pretend that I did. This is par for the course for me. I prioritize my fear of looking stupid, fear of being disliked, and fear of judgement and make colossally foolish decisions to ‘look cool’.

What really happened when we went skydiving, which I describe here as “wicked rad”, is that my partner’s parachute broke. He was a big guy, probably pushing about 250 lbs at the time, and it was a tandem dive, so add to that the weight of a second adult man. The people at the dive school were clearly concerned about it, and initially said we couldn’t go, but for some unknown reason, relented.

I was, as described above, in a numb sort of place beyond fear as we ascended. By contrast, he was visibly terrified, his face sweaty and ash grey as his turn to dive approached. He could barely speak. I remember touching his knee and smiling, trying to focus him and calm him down. He had to be cajoled out of the plane.

I jumped last of our group. When I asked my tandem instructor to point out my ex, so I could take his picture in the air (which I’d been told I’d be able to do), he tried to change the subject, pointing out banal aspects of the landscape instead. He’d seen my ex’s chute break, and watched him spiral into a second, spinning free fall, and he didn’t want me to panic, or witness his death, I suppose. A line of people streamed out of the barn-like building below, also having seen the danger. But my ex’s instructor eventually managed to release the broken chute (which ended up miles away), get their second chute open successfully, and regain control to make it to the ground safely.

Selfie during the canopy ride, unaware of anything amiss.

Skydiving may be fun, but it’s also stupid, dangerous, and as a leisure activity, pointless. Even at the time, thrills weren’t very interesting to me, and I’m embarrassed that I let my social anxiety dictate my attitude and decision making over and above common sense. Either one of us could easily have been killed. What a fun 25^th birthday that would have been.

Years later, several people told me how awkward they felt when parts of this story were recounted with much hilarity at my ex’s wedding – the maid of honour apparently thinking that it was a great way to illustrate his joie-de-vivre. Salient details, such as the fact that he nearly puked and nearly died, were apparently left out, as was I. I suppose this makes sense considering the context, but I sometimes shake my head at the fact that I was publically excluded from the story of my own 25^th birthday present, and also, that anyone would think this was a cute story to tell at a wedding, but … okay. To be fair, his was the chute that broke.

Nonetheless, here is a plea to my child(ren): Please, never go skydiving. My father (your Bapa, himself an experienced pilot and former skydiver) was right. It is an incredibly idiotic, needlessly risky endeavour. May you value your young life more than I did, and be both smarter, and braver than I was, and resist and speak up if anyone ever attempts to push or shame you into doing something that you don’t really want to do.

A couple of idiots, after the dive.