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 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!

The 'Always' of 'Be Coming'

I have been doing a lot of talking with friends these days about life changes, wondering about how many times in our lives do we change on a personal note.  Now a smartass would say that we are changing constantly.  Well, duh, but when do we get to the point of satisfaction or where we want to be in our growing state of mind?

I kept coming back to the phrase ‘coming of age,’ which in its true self is a vague term.  What defines a coming of age?  Internet sources such as Wikipedia and Webster’s Dictionary say that ‘coming of age’ is when we become an adult.  Based on that statement alone a part of me screams “I am not growing up and you cannot make me.’  However, what is growing up or becoming an adult?

Yes, I took a lot of time to think about this.  Is becoming an adult the legal side where, ‘let’s pick an age and say you can do what your parents do?’  Is being an adult an amount of maturity you have based on responsibility and obligation?  Maybe being an adult is like entering a secret society where you have a ‘right of passage’ with actions that prove your commitment.  FYI, my inner child is still rejecting every definition of growing up and being an adult.  I do not know about the rest of you reading this, but picking a number out of a hat seems unethical, as there is no criterion for it.  Maturity is subjective these days with the help from the set legalized adult age and not everyone wants to be in a secret society with uncalled for obligations.

I am sure anyone reading this is in question where this is exactly going.  It is going to a point that no matter your age, like the defined child, we are all a bit lost in the definition of who we are.  I will be the first to admit that I have been in this position, revisiting the thought every now and again  to confirm that I am following what will make my life ‘worth it’ to me.  At thirty years young, (yes, I am thirty and yes, I still feel young thank you very much), I am slowly revamping the puzzle pieces of my life.  By this time in my life I wanted to be married to a man who truly loved me for me as passionately as I love him, have a child or two, and be working somewhere that makes me want to get up in the morning.  Well as life may have it, I was married to a guy who was passionately in love with every insecure female in five different towns (that have been verified), I do not have any children from him (thank God) or any other man, and my current career is under construction.  The process feels like a second chance in the defined stage of ‘coming of age.’ *snerk* I have to chuckle as I write this because the here and now is not where I wanted/planned to be at all.  Now this does not mean I am not optimistic about things to come, however, sometimes my impatience gets to me.

Life is not set in stone nor does it follow a specific plan no matter what others may think, but it does follow a plan, I believe that we are all here for a purpose and until it fulfilled, we remain where we are in each living moment.  So when are we 'finalized'?  To me, this means we are always at some 'coming of age' type period, always and forever changing/improving.

A friend of mine this week confessed how lost this person feels thinking that life would be different also.  The advice I gave was to set one goal and find how you are going to meet that goal because until you meet one goal the other goals will just fall apart since they are not receiving your full attention.  For me, my goal is to leave the town I was forced to live and find my own place.  Living a life that someone else has forced upon you is surrendering and I am too strong for that.  It took a lot of time to think things like through, so I decided to write it down in a book I am working on publishing.  I someday hope that in print it will not be as confusing as it felt, but a better vision of a realization.