It has been a very rough month for me because of the whole moving thing and i have apparently lost a friend due to this person's completely unhinged sense of things. I am physically battered. Bruised all over both shins, skin scraped, bruises in other places. Every muscle in my body aches from packing/moving (and the training session I had on Tuesday) and mentally I am pretty hurt as well. I was in a very dark place not too long ago but thankfully with the help of a few incredible people I have gotten to a bit of a better place. One of those people suggested I find something to look forward to to get me through the last week of the move that was more immediate than my San Francisco trip at the end of September.
I had been thinking about what that could be and then all of a sudden it hit me, skydiving! It is something I have wanted to do since I was super little. The timing was right and the circumstances were right so I decided why not? I made a reservation and finally went for it. I went to a place called Sky Dive Th Ranch in Gardiner, NY at the recommendation from someone like 2 years ago. I got up at 5:50 am (after barely 3.5 hours of sleep) and drove the 90 minutes to the place. (well I got a bagel first).
I signed in and couldn't contain my excitement as I was watching people land. At one point i was using the bathroom and there was no way for me to open the door without touching the knob (luckily someone opened it for me) but i laughed at the fact i was more afraid of germ than jumping out of a plane.
Eventually I was introduced to my skydive instructor Eric Normandin. He was a super cool guy and you could tell he LOVES his job... like really loves it. He told me a bit about himself (over 6000 jumps, what even is that) and asked about me. He went over all the safety stuff and just kept getting me more and more excited. I was doing it all by myself so I didn't have anyone i knew to share the experience so I had been a touch sad about that, but it turns out that didn't matter because he was my best buddy for the next half hour or so and that worked for me. I also had a wonderful camera man documenting for me... Big Jim.
We went up in the plane and it was so loud but he kept the excitement going while he was also doing all the safety checks. Let me tell you once all the tandem stuff was connected we were truly connected like there was no doubt we were attached to each other. Watching the people jump before me was a surreal experience and then it was my turn! What a freaking rush. Standing with your toes over the edge of an open door 13,500 feet above the ground with a plane flying 100 mph. The feeling I had as we were dropping was pretty awesome and I kept trying to find and look at my camera man. Then the parachute finally got deployed and we changed our position from parallel to perpendicular to the ground. Then he helped me take off the safety googles and loosened our connection just a touch. Then he gave me a lesson on how to steer a parachute which I had no idea you could do. Then I got a chance to steer it and we did circles in one direction and then another and then back again. Then when we were about 600 feet from the ground he took over and I said I didn't want to land and he joked that this was a one way ticket. Then i had to practice lifting my legs up for the landing... I was not so sure i had the ab muscles left to do this after the last several days but thankfully they kicked in... the landing was pretty funny... i literally skidded cross the ground and it kicked up grass and dirt all over me... it didn't hurt just a funny sensation. I had so much fun and so happy that I got to do it. I think I finally found the thing that gives me the adrenaline kick I am looking for.
Then I had my video and pictures ready for me pretty quick afterwards so I got to upload them right away! This was just the thing I needed to help get me to a more positive look on my life right now. When and where can i do this again?
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