Skydiving!

My little sister told me that she wanted to go skydiving for her 21^st birthday. When I asked her who she was going with, she said none of her friends are the type of people to go skydiving. She said she was fine going by herself. I said she couldn’t go by herself. I have always wanted to skydive. After thinking it over I decided to take the day off work and do it. It’s a once in a life time chance to go skydiving with my sister on her 21^st birthday. Carpe diem!

Maybe it’s because I got into a car accident a few days before, but I really wasn’t that nervous about it. Even when we got to the skydiving place I felt calm. The instructors jump 6-20 times a day so they really make it seem like it’s not a big deal. I didn’t get that nervous until the plane to the door open. But at that point they move you out so quickly you don’t have time to hesitate. You don’t jump out of the plane either. You instructor rocks you out so quickly you don’t have time to look down.

My mom really wanted a video to live vicariously through us. My sister didn’t want the camera man right in front of her while she was falling because she just wanted to enjoy the experience. So my mom paid the extra to have the camera guy shoot me instead. (It’s really expensive to get the video and pictures but man, the pictures turn out good.)

My first thought when I jumped out was: this is really cold. My mouth was really dry. That’s about all I can remember. I don’t even remember looking at anything during the freefall. I wanted to see myself falling through clouds, but it’s much too fast to notice that. The freefall lasted about as long as I wanted it to. I was ready for it to be over when he deployed the parachute.

After that it didn’t feel very real. It felt a little like I was in an airplane except it was kind of windy. I don’t know, it just didn’t seem real. I think I would need to go again to really be able to appreciate it. The first time you don’t know what to expect and you’re just in shock. It also goes really fast. It’s expensive so it will be a while before I do it again. But I feel like I couldn’t full appreciate the whole experience the first time around.

If you are considering skydiving in your life, do it! Once you decide to do it, it’s about as a scary as a six flags roller coaster.