A Falling Adventure

Sometimes your life mate thinks a parachute will save you from your "slump".

On Thursday I dropped in to visit my amazing wife at her office. Upon my arrival I give her a kiss as she hands me a piece of paper and says, "You've been in a slump, it's time to get out of it." I realized the paper was a booking confirmation... to go skydiving. I had never been skydiving, I'd done similar things, but never had I jumped out of an airplane.

"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear-not absence of fear. Except a creature be part coward it is not a compliment to say it is brave; it is merely a loose misapplication of the word." -Mark Twain

My wife had been skydiving before so I couldn't refuse or back out and maintain my dignity; also when faced with a choice I would rather win over fear whenever possible. I view my wife as my equal, she has jumped from an airplane and now it's my turn. I call various friends and invite them to join me the following day. I called people I have known since I was seven years old, friends I was in Iraq and/or Afghanistan with, a friend who was a flight medic in Afghanistan and I get either a "no" or a "hell no"... or they couldn't join because of work.

Well fuck, if I am going to skydive I want to have a friend with me. I give it some thought and the first person that comes to mind is my 18 year old nephew, Ethan. I give him and his mother (a.k.a. my sister, Jen) a call. To my surprise they are both completely over the moon about the idea. Jen couldn't join us because she had shoulder surgery a couple days before but my nephew was so excited to fall out of an airplane with me.

That night...

"I'm an adrenaline junkie because of you." -Ethan

My wife called Skydive Spaceland and registered my nephew to jump with me, I confirm everything with him and he called into work. (Sorry, What-A-Burger, my nephew is a badass!) I spend my time watching videos and reading about skydiving so that I know as much as possible to prepare for the following afternoon. As I'm reading, I learn that I am at a higher risk of injury getting behind the wheel of my car and driving the hour to the skydiving facility than I am jumping out of the plane at 14,000 feet. The internet claims that there is a 0.0007% chance of injury. Those are pretty excellent odds, the only real issue is that the injury could be death. What's Scooby-Doo to do?

Time waits for no man!

Night comes and I feel comfortable, or at least, I have accepted "my fate". I have watched videos of successful jumps, successful malfunction corrections, aaand read of some unfortunate events (that 0.0007% we just talked about). It's around 1:00 AM when Ethan makes it out to my place, he was going to spend the night so we could hang out during the day before our adventure. He gives me a hug, tells me how excited he is, and walks into the guest room to pass out. I go back to laying in bed thinking about the upcoming event and all of the random dumb shit I've done in the past. This is far from the craziest thing I've ever done. In no way am I trying to claim that I wasn't intimidated, that would be a lie, but the intimidation was manageable.

Morning quickly arrives causing me to start my day earlier than normal in a subdued sort of state, not depressed but locked onto what needs to be accomplished: Jump out of a perfectly good airplane at 17:30 so I turn on some tavern music then shit, shower, put on some comfortable clothes (a tie dyed Scooby-Doo shirt, Lucky jeans, honey badger socks, and old man shoes) and groom my magnificent beard of freedom then start cooking breakfast, meanwhile Ethan is still sound asleep. Once I have the eggs prepared I knock on Ethan's door and tell him to join me for breakfast. To no surprise we discuss and watch videos of skydiving as we enjoy some delicious eggs and coffee. What skilled skydivers can accomplish while falling at 120 MPH towards earth is absolutely incredible, have you watched Tom Cruise skydive? Love him or hate him, he is a badass skydiver!

Ethan and I pack up to leave the house making sure we had everything we needed so we didn't need to do any backtracking. It's pretty simple: Paperwork, identification, cell phone, and of course bottles of water, "Hydrate or die," as I always say. Ethan and I go to visit my wife at her office, we have about a hour to kill before we begin the journey to the drop zone. Ethan is showing absolutely no nervousness or fear only pure excitement, it makes me wonder if this experience will become a life changing event in his life as so many other people claim skydiving has been for them.

When I think back on the event I remember loading into the aircraft, I remember discussing with a fellow jumper as we are boarding the aircraft and checking our gear before straddling the bench. This wasn't a shocking style of loading an aircraft, it was the logical method of loading cargo. Yes sir, we are going up in this plane and falling to the earth. You can see this in the video, fear and acceptance of what is about to occur. What did we come here to do? Fall out of this plane. At what altitude are you getting out of the plane? 14,000. What altitude are you discharging the parachute? 6,000 feet. C'est la vive. Load up. You are about to fall from an aircraft, a long ways. Once you fall from a certain height the extent of damage becomes irrelevant. You pick your fate. In life we all pick our consequence. As I was falling from the sky I remember shouting out "I love life!" as I am plummeting towards the ground approaching terminal velocity, 120 miles per hour!

I will not lie. It was, is, and always will be a fucking rush. To say that it wasn't would be a lie. It is however not unlike anything one could ever experience. It does remind you of how awesome your life is, that is for sure. Do you want to reach terminal velocity? If you want to reach that then skydiving is the one only way and it's not on this earth but it is in the same atmosphere. You will feel a great deal of air passing you by as you fall at a high rate of speed towards a much more dense object. You will have time to think but not really enough time to fully explain why you are falling to the planet at a high rate of speed other than you somehow put yourself in such a position as to fall towards the earth at such a high rate of speed. In this case it was that my wife decided Scooby was going to eject the parachute. Yes, this Scooby fan is going to do his best to ensure that the parachute was asked to open and spare this man's life at least once. Thankfully my parachute did open.

One way I can attempt to describe the moment is: you truly experience and live in that moment, people who meditate and achieve that feeling of zen probably can relate and understand. It's a peaceful moment, sadly it is a short moment. However, it is living life at such a high rate of speed it slows down similar to living through a Phantom Camera. For in that short time you must make a critical decision that is going to decide whether you live or die. Simple. Thankfully you have two chances generally when it comes to skydiving. There is also the Automatic Activation Device (AAD) which may save your life if needed. With all of this being said skydiving is impressively safe.

Remembering and reflecting on this event in my life, I don't think I would want to go as far as to call it a life changing event that has altered my life in some impressively deep way. I do believe it is a fun moment that I am glad I was able to experience. I realize how anticlimactic that is, sometimes events in life tend to be that way. There is a flow to life that we all tend to recognize the more we live, not the longer we live. Just because you have more opportunities the longer you live doesn't mean you are taking advantage of those moments.

I am certainly not in any position to act as if I have capitalized on every opportunity that comes my way. Probably not even a third of them. That's just how life flows sometimes, the path of least resistance.

Look to the sky, life is a beautiful thing. Thank you, Christ.

• Skyline Scooby