Week 4: A Jump of Faith

Our connected bodies rush into the freezing air and are sent hurling down, down towards the cold, hard earth below. For what seemed like an eternity, we are free falling and I can feel the wind push against my face. Kind of like when you have a fan blowing and you position yourself in front of it and say in your best Darth Vader voice “Luke, I am your father”, but at a much faster speed.

Yes folks...I went skydiving!

Now, I have never been afraid of heights, but you have to admit that jumping out of a plane -- on purpose -- is not something done on an everyday basis. And I’m sure many people feel why would you even want to do that. Why not?

After some cleansing experiences during my first few weeks on my 50 Weeks to 50 journey, I knew it was time to do something a little more thrilling than meditation and colonics. It was time for some real fun, and what better than to take a jump of faith, to sort of speak, with one of my partners in crime, Lacy. We both had our emotions spill out from last week’s Tarot Card reading, which was somewhat exhausting, so we needed an adrenaline rush.

On the drive south to the Otay Lakes area where Skydive San Diego is located, I did notice some grayish looking clouds, but I thought nothing of it since at least it wasn’t raining like the day before. Once there we took our sweet time reading and initialling the liability waivers, asking to look at the case law they cited and making sure copies were made for our records. I also pointed out that although I do have high blood pressure and take medication, there wasn’t anyplace to actually waive the warning. (Lacy is an attorney and I was a litigation paralegal in past years.) So, by the time we actually finished the paperwork we were relegated to the last group...and was told the jumps were on a weather hold. Apparently there’s some FAA regulation that you can’t jump through clouds. WTF.

So we waited, and waited, then the weather hold lifted, then the clouds came back, and we waited and waited.

Skydive San Diego has their own private runway and grass landing area, so guests can freely come watch the jumpers and don’t have to drive around to follow the group. There’s a food truck available so while we wait, we eat. I have a tasty nutella peanut butter croissant - I will definitely need to try that at home. Lacy orders a BBQ beef sandwich. And we sit, and eat, and walk around, and sit in the lobby, and sit in the car, and talk, and think.