Big Sky Mind

It wasn’t my intention to fall from the sky. Actually, it was never my intention to be so far from Earth that skydiving out of a Cessna was my only choice if I wanted to return. Options are usually pretty important to a girl like me.

Yet there I was, hunched over on my knees and harnessed to Don, a man who is supposedly in the Guinness Book of World Records for having completed the most jumps. I chose to partner with him because I decided his title offered me some sense of security. My brother told me afterwards that this reason was exactly why he didn’t choose Don as his jump mate. He figured so many successes meant Don’s time could be up at any moment. I was glad my brother kept his opinion to himself until we were back in the car.

My brother also told me later that the whole experience had been a set-up from the very beginning. Convince Emilie to drive him and his friend to the skydiving center, with the understanding that her sole responsibility was taking pictures of him as he landed. Casually (and slyly, because he had already called in advance and therefore knew the answer) ask if there was any room in the plane for one more jumper. I let him ask only because I felt certain there couldn’t possibly be any leftover space. There were a lot of people milling around, and this was a small company that used four-seater planes with the back seats removed, so no more than six people could fit in one plane—that’s three novices and three professional skydivers. On a beautiful Saturday afternoon, there would certainly be others there, besides me, who would want to take in the view of the Pocono Mountains from 10,000 feet.

But there was room on the plane and room on my credit card and not a lot of time to waiver. I said “yes” because I noticed I had been saying “no” a lot in my life lately, and I was a little bit afraid of what that meant. Was I losing my edge? Would I miss out on the more fulfilling experiences of life because I hesitated?