The Forty Days

It is an odd feeling waking up this morning with the knowledge that I will jump out of a plane today.  Last night, I was in a terrible mood, a mood that had been building for some time.  First, I am extremely tired—for some godforsaken reason, I have started waking up at 6:30 am.  So for the past few days, I have been getting precious little sleep.  Second, I am cranky—too much stress from having to write and weave my experiences into literary gold every single day, trying to scrape in time in the mornings and evenings so I can post the next blog entry on the interweb in a timely manner.  I am also feeling stress regarding tomorrow’s The Last Supper, the final event—a dinner party for those individuals who have substantially helped me throughout this project.  (Did I mention that I’ll be making the salad, main course, and desert?)  Finally, I am anxious—anxious about what the end of these forty days signifies.  I am excited about the end of the hyperactivity these forty days have wrought, but I am also nervous about the rapid approach of a new job that will likely be exceptionally demanding of both my time and psyche.  I will soon become just another worker bee—I may not be engaging in new and interesting experiences, every day may not be an adventure, and I will no longer be unique, creative, and special.

This is the dark side of me, the dark side of The Forty Days.  Tired, cranky, anxious, and entirely self-obsessed.  Neglectful of my duties as a husband and a father (of a dog).  I have really only let the better side of my personality shine through my writing, reserving all my negative attributes for my private life and for my poor wife to suffer alone.  Well, here it is in all it’s glory.  Drink.  It.  Up.  And now I have to go skydiving today–something I never even had the faintest desire to do before turning myself into the human guinea pig I have become.  This merely serves to add to my anxiety.  Fan-freaking-tastic.  (Isn’t it terrible that I am complaining about going skydiving, as if it’s some chore?  It’s supposed to be fun!)

I breathe deeply on the forty-five minute drive to Skydive San Marcos.  I am going skydiving with the best sister-in-law ever, Melissa, who is visiting us from New Orleans.  Betsy is going shopping in the outlet stores in San Marcos while we throw our asses out of a perfectly good plane.  Betsy is nervous for us.  After today, she says, you can’t do anything dangerous for awhile.  I’m tired of worrying about you.  I see her point–Africa, Kilimanjaro, pilot lesson, police ride-along, and now this.  I promise to take it easy after this one last day.  But I have to do this–I can’t wuss out now at the very end.  I tell Betsy I love her, and she leaves.

After signing in and waiting about an hour and a half, Melissa and I gear up for our dive.  I meet Jason–the man who I am going to entrust my life to for the next thirty minutes.  He straps on my harness and gives me instructions for the dive.  Ensuring that I am in the hands of a professional, I ask him how many dives he’s taken.  Somewhere between 3,600 and 3,700.  Ok, that seems like a lot.  And how long have you been working here professionally diving?  Six years.  Not bad.  I feel like I trust Jason and tell him to strap me close and hold me tight, if need be.

We board the little plane, it takes off, and my heart starts pounding.  I breathe it all in–all the anxiety, all the crankiness, all the fatigue, all the craziness of the last thirty-eight days–and I breathe it out, trying to expel it from my system.  I breathe it all in again and breathe it all out again.  Let it go, David.  Don’t hold on so tight.  Let.  Go.  We reach our altitude of 10,500 feet and the side door opens.  I look out.  I can’t believe I’m about to jump from this plane.  I am second in line to jump.  The first tandem jumpers approach the door, and I watch them jump.  They fall from the plane like a ton of bricks.  I am expected to do that??

My.  Turn.  There’s certainly no turning around now.  I approach the ledge with Jason strapped behind me.  The tips of my feet are over the edge of the plane.  I look down.  All I have to do is let go.  Just.  Let.  Go. . . .  And I do.  We fall forward and spill out of the plane.  I freak out for a split second until we straighten out into the standard free-fall position, and then it is magic.  It is as if I have been asleep, and I have just woken up.  At the same time, I feel as if I have been transported into a dream.  I am awake, but this is not life as I know it.  I am in the middle of the sky with the ground far below me, and I am floating–I do not feel as if I am falling or dropping one bit.  I am floating, and I feel absolutely amazing.  Everything else fades away.  It is as if I have been cleansed, and a sense of calm washes over me.

We free fall for about only a minute, which is way, way too short.  Jason taps me on the shoulder, I fold my arms, and pray to the Lord of all things holy that the parachute opens.  It does, and we make our way slowly down to the ground.  I pop up, give my guardian-angel Jason a big hug, and I make my way over to Melissa, as we gleam from an exhilarating experience.  We are truly high on life–well, life and jumping out of a plane.

I call Betsy, tell her I am alive, and she comes to pick us up.  I give her a big hug and kiss and tell her that I am finished putting myself through these semi-dangerous, ridiculous experiences (at least for awhile).  I breathe in, and all of the tension, anxiety, and negativity I was experiencing last night and earlier today is gone.  We start up the car, and I kid you not, “Free Fallin” starts blasting on the radio.  Hell.  Yes.

For a link to the video of my jump, click here.  (Feel free to skip the first minute, which merely consists of Skydive San Marcos’ promotional intro.)