How Six Minutes Can Affect Your Life Part 4: Feeling Alive & Love

After my jump, I felt nothing for the next few days, maybe a week.  I mean, I was proud of what I did considering I had been waiting a long time to accomplish this goal, but emotionally...complete nothingness.  It was the feeling you get after something amazing like a good movie or book and your heart just drops because...it's done.  I anticipated the probability of skydiving many years ago.  This goal then became a focus of mine that only intensified after my life was threatened because I had so much to accomplish.

After I scheduled my jump something changed in my mind.  You know those dreams you get as a child where you are flying, you are invincible, and nothing can hurt you?  I dreamt about that for about thirty days.  The feeling of suspended tranquility, unbelievable admiration, and a somehow mildly empowering feeling of accomplishment. 

Freedom.....
......complete......and utter
Freedom.

It was a place similar to what I would call limbo considering I was neither here nor there.  It is a place you may find when swimming under water or, I have been told, when doing a suspension (hanging from fish hooks?).

And then it was gone.

It was so surreal and I felt apathetic.  I felt as though I was a failure.  In the different aspects of my passed.  What did I do wrong that I ended up here with ...nothing? 

This took me awhile to adjust. I thought I was to feel alive after all that excitement and I felt dead.  I could not figure out what was wrong with me.  Then something clicked.  To many of you this will sound weird if not trite, but I had felt something I had not felt in years.  Love in its purest form.  The type you might have towards a new born child.  Do not get me wrong, I love my family and friends dearly.  I also love people in that "this is a person.  Why do you need to hurt this person?  Why does a person deserve punishment for being different than you?" type of way (too bad you cannot just stick an adult in a corner some days :P).  I had something for a bleak moment and it was gone like that.

So a part of me is lost in that at the moment.  I accept that though.  If I am patient and behave, I might get a chance to figure it out.  Love is a bit complex to figure out in one night anyway.  In the mean time, my writing has increased tremendously making me wonder if the extra oxygen levels cleared a few things or just added more air to my head for ideas to move around instead of bang into each other.  Maybe this was a process of rebirth. Pushing the "reset" button on my life? Adding more perspective because I have too much to experience yet and I just won't know it until I get there.

How Six Minutes Can Affect Your Life Part 3: Trust

Trust.  I know I have written on this if not mentioned it (...like a bajillion times), but it is SIGNIFICANT to me and I feel it contributes a lot of things in life.  We trust the ability to wake up in the morning.  We trust we will have a job with financial stability.  We trust simple things like cars to get to work, technology to function in EVERY part of our lives, or that someone will catch us when we fall.

I had two hours to develop trust in Mr. Black that with both of us having knowledge on what was to take place in the jump we would both survive regardless of his professional obligations as an instructor.  Actually, the professionalism was the only thing I trusted (Not to mention great media work by Mr. Blue).

Trust can be complicated.  There are levels that have specific purposes.  

Trusting coworkers between the lines of personal and profession interactions.  The same applies to peers at school, for example, with group projects.  Can you trust them to properly contribute?  Or can you trust that your teachers know the material they teach about?  Keep in mind special blotches of ink on paper are to be able to prove this and yet using the same concept, those blotches of ink do not always keep people safe when it comes to legal matters (marriage license, restraining orders, protection orders, etc.).  What about the level of trust in places we live with landlords or those in maintenance?

I will confidently say that the greater extent of trust is just in functionality.  We believe everything will continue to progress in time but time is another analysis for, well, another time, but is this trust or do we just take it for granted?

So I have admitted that trusting others is hard and most of that is due to the fact that you cannot control the other person.  You cannot trust something that is unstable or things out of your control.  Then again, can we trust ourselves?

I would love to work towards a skydiving license; however, financially I am out of luck at the moment.  I am still young enough (or at least I feel young enough) that I have time.  Time has nothing to do with this, only the accomplishment itself, but what if I told you I am a bit scared to do it myself?  Will I pull the right cords?  Will I pack my parachute correctly?  Am I subconsciously going to kill myself doing this? (Sorry, Mom, morbid sense of humor).  Do I trust me?

There is your lottery winning question.  Do I trust me?  Do you trust you?  Could I add any more psychological issues to this blog since I keep justifying I probably have multiple personalities? (Yes, I am kidding)  Some days I am strong than others.  On my strong days I trust that I have enough power in me to keep standing and lift others from their knees.  On weak days, I trust that I am in control enough that, if given the time, I can lift myself from my knees.  Trust can sometimes limit us or maybe, in my case, we can trust that whatever happens will happen and we will be able to handle the consequences when we get there. 

How Six Minutes Can Affect Your Life Part 2: Fear

As you read in my previous entry, I jumped out of plane and dove to the ground.  Blatantly put it sounds scary.  I actually questioned myself on thoughts of fear before my jump wondering if this was the reason of my pursuit.  I told people it was a reason for my pursuit considering some of the traumatic episodes in my life and now I wonder if it was the real reason or if I was just kidding myself.

Fear defines a person.  What type of fear and how a person handles that fear reflects upon the individual's personality.  Is this person going to take risks?  Does this person know he/she is doing?  Should this person be trusted?  What challenges can this person handle?

Some days I get this feeling that I am not afraid of anything.  Part of that is that I am too curious about things to just let them pass me by.  What I know I am afraid of is the unknown.  I was nervous, a bit afraid, of not knowing how my skydiving experience would play out.  I am scared of people because I cannot control their behavior leaving it hard for me to trust them.

Even though I have a bit of fear, maybe less than the next person, I realize I have to embrace it.  Many people just let it hold them back.  One thing that crossed my mind before my jump was the risk of death. Someone also asked me if this was something I was afraid of.  I was not afraid to die, should that have happened.  Eventually I will die.  I cannot live forever, thank goodness, but death is not a fear that should stop a person from trying new things.

A couple days after my jump a part of me felt scared.  I was scared to return to my life, which at the moment felt worthless because of the monotony.  I was scared of the people I would have to face because there are some people I do not want to encounter anymore as they leech off my life, lie to my face, and then kiss ass to other thinking their personal worth will increase.  Those types of people drain me and dealing with them is frustrating, so fear, in this case, develops a new meaning of exhaustion.

I guess I face fear every day.  I wake up, I go to work, I come home to do school work, and I could be missing something.  So as much as I grasp the concept of fear, I do not have the typical fears, like death defying feats.  I seem to fear the opposite, boredom.  Now the fear I have to face is what is my next big defeat. ;-)


"Sometimes you have to stop being scared and just go for it.  Either it'll work or it won't.  That's life." ~ Higher Perspective

The moment I stopped being scared and just went for it.  Photos by "Mr. Blue" at Skydive Fargo.

 

How Six Minutes Can Affect Your Life Part 1: The event

Despite the title, the whole event took at least a week and proceeded for a couple hours one day.  I scheduled an appointment in May to fulfill a goal on my bucket list to go skydiving.  I wanted it to take place during the month of May because it is my birthday month, it is the month I lost someone very dear to me, and the month that held my wedding anniversary.  (Note: All these happened within two weeks of each other, but during different years).  All around, it is a month I felt I needed to prove something.

I waited all month with anticipation, not feeling any fear of the potential risk.  Finally the day arrived.  I was pumped, I was psyched, I was let down.  Why?  Damn Mother Nature.  Apparently, for visual safety, it is illegal to skydive through clouds (Who knew?).  And here I thought that might be cool in a cartoon-ish sort of way (flying cupid?).  Thoroughly disappointed, I rescheduled for what I had thought was the following week only to realize it was the coming Saturday, which then turned into Sunday.  Do I have to mention that a part of me hates clouds only for the aspect of rescheduling?  

Evidently, Sunday was my third scheduled appointment (and unfortunately a new month) making a realistic "third times a charm".  Lucky for me, things went more smoothly because I had already gone through the initial training, warnings, and signing of losing any legal rights (basically, you know the risk you are taking, please sign and initial that you understand via this legal text).  

For the purpose of this blog, I will refer to the two men with me on my journey as Mr. Black and Mr. Blue (Okay, that just rang funny in my head after the fact of typing--my apologies...not really).  Mr. Black was my jumping partner and Mr. Blue was my camera guy.  I had met Mr. Blue during my initial appointment, so I felt comfortable with him from the start.  Oddly, I was a bit nervous with Mr. Black, but mind over matter I had to extinguish those thoughts quickly.

After getting strapped up and professionally violated with the biggest safety wedgie, Mr. Blue did my initial interview.  What are your thoughts?  What are you excited about?  Are you sorry you had to spend the day with us nuts here? I had to cock an eyebrow on that last one.  Obviously Mr. Blue did not know me very well.  Ha!  I must have been a little nervous because as I watch the video now, I could not be a bigger goober...but I'm okay with that.  (embrace the weird)

The experience as a whole was amazing with a high value of knowing how many people do not get this opportunity.  I was fine during the plane ride and then during the falling part of the jump, which felt like I was sitting in a baby swing.  My slap of reality was the first step outside the plane where the wind grabbed me a bit and I had to trust that Mr. Black had me secure.  I think the real expression that slipped from my lips was "Oh shit!" as I quickly ran through the typical thoughts questions.  What am I doing?  What am I thinking? Wait!  I must turn back!  I still have time to go back (exit second leg out the airplane door). There is no turning back!

It is funny though how our approach/viewpoint to life is reflected in the things we do.  Five years ago I stopped turning back from things and decided to face them realizing the value of risk, taking chances, and walking into the unknown. Life seems to become more rewarding doing the unexpected, not to mention bragging rights. :P

At the end the question is always asked: Would you ever do this again? (Many of you will not be surprised by this answer) Frick ya!  I think the question to ask yourself is why you would not take the opportunity.

For more information to obtain your own thrills, please click HERE and enjoy the ride!