In mid June I had the awesome opportunity to scratch another thing off my bucket list. I have made it a point to my mom and quiet a few doctors that I really wanted to go skydiving sometime. Everyone was totally against it, but I knew someday it was going to happen. It just made since to me. I love flying, actually I would do it as a career if I had the ability to. Ever since I was young flying to the NIH was like the best vacation trip ever. Going to the hospital was no fun but knowing that in order to get there I had to fly on a plane made the trip amazing. I didn't get to just fly in one plane, I got to return in another one as well. I would always count down the days and then not sleep the night before. Some people read this and think im crazy because more often then not people dread flying. The day finally came and I always made my mom get to the airport a few hours early because I was fascinated by watching planes taking off and land. There are times where I still pay the $2 fee to sit on the top parking garage of Port Columbus and just watch them take off and land, it is just so calming to me.
Once getting on the plane it was never a question that I would get the window seat. Again still to this day whenever I am booking a flight i ask if I can get the window seat. Something about watching the clouds and seeing the cities all lit up at night just amazes me still today. As a kid my face would be glued to the window and I would always wonder what it would be like to fall through a cloud. What a cloud feels like? The odds of me ever feeling a cloud were slim to none unless our plane was hurdling towards the ground and I was jumping out. Well lucky me I did jump out of a plane but it was voluntary and the plane was not hurdling towards the ground.
Let me paint the picture for ya. My cousins Josh and Courtney decided to tag alone and witness this jump I was about to take. As we are driving we realize the address we were given was the incorrect one as the one we were given has us turning into a guard rail. By popular vote we unanimously decided this was not the right place to turn so we kept driving. Once we went a few miles we figured we went to far so we pulled a U'y then figured we went to far the other way so we pulled another U'y. After Josh pulled up the correct address on our phone we finally made it. We pull up to this abandoned house that was filled with trash, at this point I was not longer as excited as I was while driving up. My jump time was at 1pm and the directions say arrive an hour early. Which we did. After taking a shuffle bus down a long gravel road that made me think this is where I was going to be a human sacrifice, we arrived to the jump site. I signed my life away multiple times and went through the brief jumping class. As one o'clock rolled around I was mentally prepared to jump. The 2 o'clock rolled around and I was still waiting to jump. Then 3pm, then 4 pm. I was at that point of debating whether to leave or not at this point. Finally after all the groupies had jumped and they refueled the plane with gas it was time.
I got my jump suit on and said my goodbyes and boarded the plane. The instructor was a cool guy. He had jumped over 6000 times so I felt at ease letting him be my wing man. We start climbing and he asks if I want to pull the rip cord and im like YES, if we die i want it to be my fault not yours.
We start clipping together at about 7000 feet and prepare to jump at 9000. It is FINALLY time to jump. We shuffle to the edge of the plane and pushes me out. I am dangling at this point. He counts to three and out we go.
It was cloudless all day so accomplishing my dream of always wanting to fall through a cloud seemed still non existent, but as we jump out, right below me was a cloud...A CLOUD!!!!
Were falling and falling and at 5000 feet I pull the rip cord and ten minutes later we finally reach the ground. What a great experience it was. Falling through a cloud fees like falling through a mister, just in case anyone was curious. I asked the instructor on the ground why he had me dangling out of the plane before we jumped, and he said to make sure I was attached to him. Good thing I was I guess.
There was a reason that I sat there for almost four hours waiting to jump. God was putting the cloud below me so I could feel it. You do not realize why things happen until you look back and sometimes you never know, but for me it all makes since. There is no doubt I will jump again, and there is no doubt that I will ever forget what it was like to finally fall through cloud.
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