The Random and Odd Update…
I had a panic attack.
It’s been a few days since it happened and as much as I wasn’t going to say anything about it, I realized that you have followed me on this journey and some are even on it with me. It wouldn’t be fair if I put a false face on Random and Odd.
Saturday I was exhausted after jumping, and honestly I was a little freaked out by the parachute being twisted up on my first jump out. I had jumped several times before that with someone and each time I looked up at the chute, the lines were exactly where they spose to be. If you would have told me, “Oh yeah, you’re going to have one of those malfunction we just watched on your first jump alone”…I probably would have walked out.
When I got home all bruised and hurting.I laid down and all the things that have happened in the last few months hit me hard.
“Holy shit Kristine! What the hell? What the hell are you doing? What you trying to prove? You could have died today! Is this what you want to do? Oh, and while you’re at it lets think about EVERY DETAIL OF YOUR LIFE in high def with surround sound!”
And so I sat there and had wave after wave of panic wash over me. Each time one would hit, I would wince with actual pain from one of the many places that hit the earth at a high rate of speed.
I looked down at my throbbing toe. It was red and black in places and I kept hearing what people had said, “Well, it could have been worse.” Dear God it could have been much worse!
What the hell am I thinking? That is just fucking insane.
Now I am going to take a moment to talk about how if you’ve never done this, you will never fully comprehend what I am saying. There is nothing more surreal in this world than being in the back of plane with the strange energy of skydivers. Sometimes you have the tandems with you. They look terrified of the unknown and I have to look away from them to avoid being sucked into their vibe. The last jump I had I wanted to laugh and say, “Yeah, that ain’t shit! Just kick back and relax sweetie because as much as you would like to think that is skydiving, it’s not. It’s being attached to a skydiver…you haven’t done anything until you’ve actually climbed out onto the side of this plane with no one attached to you, look out at the propeller and know you have to get yourself right because no one is going to do it for you.”
The plane is so loud as you’re boarding and the smell of burnt jet fuel gets in your hair, clothes and in your nose and you carry that sound and smell with you for the rest of the day. There is a quiet moment when all the sky divers are going over their jump in their heads. I usually spend this time looking around and counting how many times a jumper looks at his altimeter. It’s also the time I start singing in my head the theme to Sesame Street. Sunny Days. Sweeping the clouds away. On may way…to where the air is clean. Only 3 thousand feet…must check all my straps, harnesses, cutaway, reserve, pilot. I start to get that sick feeling when I grab my goggles and put them on. Goggles mean “Go time”. I’m certain that the helmet strap is going to cut off my breathing so I hold on to it to and finish off the song. Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street? Check the altimeter even though I know it’s time to go because everyone has moved around and readied themselves to go out the door.
“OUT! OUT! OUT!” Gets yelled and jumpers make their way out of the door. Having the seat in the front of the plane means I get to watch them as they fall into the sky. The doorway is mine now and I grab the bar and swing out. Five seconds is all I have and that is pushing it. Ready? out, in, OUT. And now i’m falling. Are my eyes open? Am I really paying attention in those first few seconds? I will have to check the video when we get back to the hanger. A few seconds in free fall is a lifetime, I can’t waste it.
It’s at this point that I am the calmest. The anxiety that has built up from the moment we manifested, geared up, waited outside for the plane, got on and that long ride up is finally gone. This part is easy. Arch. I forget to arch for a split second and my body reacts. Relax. They keep saying that and I keep forgetting to. I would be so much better at this if I could just get over the time BEFORE I get to this point.
For the life of me I want to be able to remember everything we had talked about doing in this dive, but I can’t. I want to spin. I want to push my shoulder into the wind and spin again and again. I want to stop and do it all over again. I can’t, there is only so many feet and I am already at 7,000 feet and I have to hold for 5 seconds until I drop to 6,000 and then reach back and throw out my pilot. Remember to look where you’re throwing. I don’t remember. I just grab, throw and stare up and count the seconds before the chute opens.
I remember that being the relaxing moments during the tandem as the master gets the toggles and does a couple of spins. Now I am the one grabbing the toggles. I’m in awe of myself as I start talking out loud now. No one can hear me. “Open. Open. OPEN ALL THE WAY.” and the sound a chute makes when it opens is heaven. SNAP. How do I know where where these ‘toggle’ things are? This was not covered in any video. It’s in those first seconds that I realize how little I really know. Instinctively I reach up and pull the yellow straps from the place they are stored and I do my checks.
I’ve never done this before on my own, yet here I am doing this as if I have done it a million times. Check my altimeter again. Four minutes of floating that’s not floating. Take a moment to look at where you are…can’t. I have to check my altimeter again and make sure I am where I need to be. Check for other chutes.
The first check point I can nail. 1000 feet above the earth I am exactly where I need to be. The second check point seems to get there too fast as the hot air comes up and shimmies my chute and makes me nervous. I do my turn and now it’s time to land this thing. “It’s like driving a car and coming up on a stop light. Do not slam on the brakes a mile before you get to the light.” What do I do? I slam on the brakes and the chute thinks its time to stop. I crash into the ground and I can feel every bone in my body rattle and resettle back into place.
After the first landing, I got up and gave my instructor a wave to let him know I was okay. How he could see me from that far away, I will never know. As I was walking back with this enormous chute slung over my shoulder and my body shaking from the whole experience I let myself cry. “I did it.” I let the tears come. “I did it.”
This anxiety attack I had scared me. I was so afraid of losing the ability to do something as wonderful as skydiving. I figured out what it was that was scaring me. My brain went into flight or fight mode somewhere in the middle of the evening. I wasn’t able to calm it.
For the record though, I’m not giving up on it. I just have to remember to not think, just do.
Today on the way to work looked down at my ring finger and waited for the pain to wash over me, but it didn’t happen. I actually had to think back to the last time I has rubbed my fingers together to ‘rotate’ the ring back into place, even though the ring was no longer there. The instinctual habit had somehow stopped.
In the first few days of not wearing my wedding ring, when I would do that, it would be like being stabbed in the heart and I wondered if a day would come when I wouldn’t miss the weight of the ring and all that it had stood for.
“There is a luggage limit for every passenger on a flight. The same rules apply to your life. You must eliminate some baggage before you can fly.”
I’m ready to let all that baggage go if it means that I can live the rest of my life without anxiety, frustration, what ifs and not allowing the outcome of my day being dependent on the mood or behavior of another person.
For once in my life I am finally free…and I won’t let myself get in the way of all the joys that come hand in hand with it.
I’m making mistakes. I’m not learning from them. I’m stumbling. I realize that I am going to do this and I just really hope that in the end of all of this, I’m going to be alright. That’s all I ask…just let me be alright.