“In a world in which we are all slaves to the laws of gravity, I’m proud to be counted as one of them freedom fighters”. Flying is freedom, it is relief from people, the world, a transcendental flight lasting ten minutes, and a lifetime. To me, skydiving was a parallel life crammed into a day of my normal life.
It was a week after my eighteenth birthday, and I made a life altering choice, to jump out of a plane at 15,000 feet. Like a child going to Disney World, I became electrified at the thought. Time slowed as the date crept forward, trudging through until the day, my Disney World, came. All the while thinking, “How much more of this can I take?”
Riding in the car to Louisburg, like the first day of school, not knowing what to expect, feeling a hoard of pounding emotions. Pushing against my skin, anxiety, excitement, nervousness, and anticipation all wanted to burst through to eat me whole. “Stay calm Luke.” I had to keep telling myself. After an eternity in a car my dad, Jim, and I arrived at the hanger. “First things first” I thought, “I need to sign away my life.” So I did, and I felt like I was in grade school again, hearing the same thing over and over. “You cannot sue us for this…You cannot sue us for that…You cannot sue us for all the above” the paper said to me. Slowly signing away all my rights, and my life. I wanted to get it over with. Like a senior in high school, I was ready to be done with all the boring claptrap.
One hour, two hours, three hours. Impatience, anxiety, and fear overwhelmed me. “Luke Henry” the intercom says. Exhilarated, I briskly walked into the training room, finding about ten other people, and a senior skydiver. Now I was getting somewhere, I was almost done. We learned about the proper safety precautions, we learned how to fall, and how to land. Every minute my attention getting sharper, as my fascination grew. Finally I was about to fly.
I met my instructor, and all the random people that were as crazy as I was. My tandem instructor taught me more about skydiving; how the parachute opens, how the harnesses works, what all the strings were. It was like college, everything was more intricate, detailed, and life threatening. One rope opened the parachute; one rope detached the instructor from me. Awkwardly making my way outside in a wind suit and a funky leather helmet that would not help even the slightest if something were to go wrong. Walking outside, the blinding sun bearing down, I got into a mock plane, used to help tandem jumpers learn how to jump. I was wearing the most complex harness imaginable, trying to make my way through a small cutout of a plane, with only about five and a half feet clearance. Awkwardly trying to jump belly first onto a pad, when I was a foot off the ground. It took awhile, but after a few less than average jumps, I did it. Off in the distance I noticed a group of first time jumpers just landed, they had graduated, and it was soon to be my turn. Excitement flooded me when I saw them land. Finally noticing that the entirety of my group was already walking toward the plane, I ran over. Walking up to the plane, I started to feel my heart, beating faster, and harder. I wondered if someone could see it through the wind suit I was wearing. Perhaps it was the thought that I might die, or maybe it was the after effects all the adrenaline, but everything became more defined. I could see every detail; with every heartbeat my vision fluttered in and out of focus, zooming in on the most miniscule details.
Sitting down, the engine started. “Why is it so loud?”, it was like being at a NASCAR race. “This is it, there is no turning back now, either I live or I die.” I was okay for the first couple thousand feet. Around a mile high, I started getting nervous, the turbulence did not help, nor did the fact that the door was open. I thought, “Am I really going to do this?”, everything was just a little too much. We had reached ten thousand feet when my instructor strapped himself so close to me, we might as well have been one person. No escaping now. Noticing that I was the closest person to the open door. Terror flooded through ever inch of me when I realized I was jumping first. It did not help that the closest person in age to me was about thirty-five. I started to think, think about life, that I might die. I thought about everyone I did not get to say good-bye to. I thought about all the things I wanted to tell people, because it could have been my last day alive. All the untold stories I had, all the feelings I would not be able to share, All the friends I would never meet, all the years I would never get back if anything went wrong.
Fourteen thousand feet, we stand up. So vividly is this memory sketched in my mind. We walk over to door, I can hear the wind rushing by, I can see for miles. I kneel down, my knee just over the edge of the plane, my instructor right beside me. I look down, and see the hanger, except it is the size of an ant. My heart pounding faster than possible, so fast it hurt. He says “Ready...One, two three, lets skydive!” I jump out of a plane at fifteen thousand in the air. A part of me dies. All a thoughts ended, they just went away. It was too late now, so I might as well enjoy it.
I saw the plane, we were upside down, our backs to the ground. There was too much to take in. It felt like a million gallons of adrenaline and endorphins flooded my body. I could not hear anything. Nothing mattered, I did not have any worries, or doubts, I was not concerned with the world. I did not care, I was perfect, and I was flying. At almost three miles high, nothing matters at all. The earth curved around, as I gazed over, what looked like, the entire state. I stretched out my right han’d, and we spun clockwise. I stretched out my left hand, we spun counterclockwise. We were falling 120 miles per hour, the fastest a person can fall. Time has a funny effect when a person is falling that fast. Falling two miles in a minute does not feel like a minute, it feels like an hour at least. Everything was so detailed, I saw every feather of the birds flying thousands of feet below. I did not feel abnormal when I was falling; I could breath fine, I didn’t feel the pounds of air pushing me up, not letting me exceed 120 miles per hour. I was just falling, possibly to my death. Around four thousand feet the parachute was pulled, but right before, we collided with a cloud at full force. I looked over to see water droplets flying up from my hand as they trapped the cloud in my palm. Totally immersed in the water droplets I was seeing, combined with the foggy beauty of falling through a cloud, I did not feel the hand on my shoulder meaning the parachute was about to be pulled. Going from terminal velocity for about thirty miles per hour is a very intense feeling, especially when you are not ready for it. In the end though, it was worth it, that moment in my life was perfection. After a sharp jolt, and the rush of wind passing my ears, I was fine, I was alive.
I had gone though years of emotions in a few minutes. I did not even notice when we landed, I was out of my body; however content. My parallel life had been good, I was ready to die and return to my normal life. It was amazing; word can not be used to describe the feeling of falling as fast as possible. You are hurtling toward your death, going terminal velocity, only to be saved only by a thin piece of fabric. Everything falls short of what I felt. Even three weeks later, when I still felt like I had just jumped. I was on a high for at least a month. Every car drive, I always thought, “I have gone twice as fast as this”, every dream, I was flying.
Skydiving was a parallel life crammed into a day of my life. Every moment corresponded with what I have felt in my life, and what I will feel in the future. Emotionally dead afterward, I just rode the shockwave of what I had just done for weeks. In the sky, above the world, I was a bird. Up in the sky, there are no wars, no pains, no anger, just peace. It is a surreal place, a place untouched by people; kept hidden from the world and the pollution and death that reside here. People always wonder where heaven is, heaven is just about three miles above our head in broad daylight. In the blue, you are free from the existentialism in the world. I have a purpose now, to be in the sky.
