Jumping out of a perfectly good airplane.

Skydiving.

I went skydiving.

Am I crazy?!

Last night at 11pm, all three of my fellow jumpers backed out of the trip at the last minute. Including, much to my displeasure, my drive. The Skydive Space Center is an hour's drive away with no public transit available to get there. I was not impressed.

The stubborn bit of my personality came out with a vengeance. I was going. And I would find a way.

So, this morning Emily and I got a cab to the nearest Enterprise location and I rented a car. I rented the cutest little bright red Ford Fiesta for the day. We had directions on my ipod and we took off down the highway, a beautiful sunny Florida morning and hardly any traffic.

I felt so free - and we got the ipod hooked up to the stereo and blasted some Taylor Swift as we drove. I don't know about you, but I'm feeling 22! The feeling was amazing, and I felt like a big girl!

A little less than an hour later we were pulling into the parking lot of the Titusville Skydive Space Center. I went in first to make sure we were in the right place and I was greeted by Wendy, the loveliest of ladies. Wendy was there to help me fill out my paperwork. I went back out to the car to get Emily and then went inside to sign away any rights, responsibilities, my left leg and my first born child. Twelve pages (actually 12, not an exaggeration) of initials and signatures later and a great deal of money off my credit card, and I was ready to go. Emily, who has to take an entire bottle of anti-anxiety meds (okay, that one is an exaggeration) before getting on a normal flight, opted to stay on solid ground ;)

When I walked out into the hangar I was greeted by Paulo, my tandem jumper. He was very nice, very foreign, and easily the biggest and sturdiest looking instructor in the bunch, for which I was immediately grateful. He had me laughing and joking right away about how he was my best friend today, and before I knew it I was stepping into the harness. He expertly did up all the buckles and straps and seemed so at ease that it was easy to stay relaxed. Everything seemed far too loose fitting to be jumping out of a plane, but he assured me that he'd tighten them inside the plane.

I then met Dimitri, my videographer! When we met, he shook my hand and then asked Paulo if he'd read the instructions, since it was his first day and first jump and all. Paulo said he'd skimmed them, but he'd watched it done on youtube, so he was pretty sure he knew what to do. I told them both to cut it out with the jokes because they were being silly! They laughed and then Dimi took me aside to stand in front of the plane and get a small chat on film before I jumped. Paulo ran over a few things with me like how to jump out of the plane (I informed him that he would need to push me) and how to land.

Before I knew it, Paulo and Dimi were all strapped up and leading me towards the plane. I waved goodbye to Emily, smiled for the camera and followed Paulo inside. We straddled the benches and Paulo tightened my hip straps and hooked our harnesses together at the hips. Everyone else filed into the plane and all of a sudden, we were in the air. Unlike an airport, they don't have to wait for airspace to clear, or for the tower to give them the okay. There's only one plane and it can take off whenever it likes. And it likes to do this quickly. It only took us about 10 minutes to reach jumping height, but on the way up I saw the Kennedy Space Center and the Atlantic Ocean and the Florida coast. It was beautiful.

As we went up, I asked Paulo how many jumps he has actually done; I was over his 1800th! That's a lot, and he's still alive and well so I literally was putting my life in his hands. Paulo went over the jump again with me, and as the door opened, he had me lean back against him so that he could hook our shoulder straps together. As he did, he tightened the harness with a quick jerk and everything immediately felt more secure and safe and I knew that I would not fall out of it. We threw our legs over the bench and crouched slowly to the door of the plane. Dimi went out first, holding on to the side so that he could jump with us to get the whole thing on video.

And as I stood there, for a split second with my toes over the edge, my first thought was "I should have worn a sweater, it's cold up here." And then I was pushed out into the open air and my thoughts very quickly merged into

"HEAD BACK AHHH KNEES BENT AHHH ARCHED BACK AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH."

Once the sensation of falling was over (after about 3 seconds), it felt like I was standing in front of a huge fan. I quickly found out the two problems that I specifically would face: remembering to breathe, and painful eardrums.

I found out easily that breathing through my nose meant that I was more easily able to intake oxygen. That, combined with fear that Woody's rocket face from Toy Story would be on my video, meant that my mouth was tightly shut almost the entire way down. It made it look like I was not enjoying the ride... when in fact I was so exhilarated I could barely contain myself.

Not super attractive.

The other problem was my ear drums. This was also quickly fixed with a fast plugging of the nose and blowing outwards, which I had to do several times on the way down! Fighting with the wind for my arm and for oxygen made the minute and a half of free fall feel more like ten seconds. Dimi took video of the whole experience and I'm pretty sure he laughed at me a lot.

Unfortunately, by the time I'd gotten my breathing, eardrums, and "AHHHHH"s under control, the free fall was pretty much done. And while I'm glad that the parachute opened perfectly, I wish the free fall had been longer so that I could have fully enjoyed more of it!

The parachute ride lasted just under ten minutes, and was easily the best part of the whole experience. It was absolutely beautiful from so high up in the clouds, but the mad rush of wind was gone, breathing was easier and I could even talk to Paulo. I took in as much as I could as the air got warmer and the breeze was beautiful and the realization sank in that I had just jumped out of a perfectly good airplane. Holy crap. I could see the Space Center and the Atlantic and trees and pools and houses. I felt like I was on top of the world - which I basically was. We were above the clouds.

We did a couple of parachute spins and all too quickly Paulo was telling me how to land and the ground was rushing up to meet us. And all too quickly I was unhooked and I was done.

I have no words. It was amazing. The video of the whole experience is posted at the end of this post. If you have the patience to watch the whole thing, excuse my I'm-not-having-fun facial expressions. I promise you, I was having the time of my life! :)

 After we were done, I texted my dad while I waited for my edited video to be finished. It was a good half hour to sit and decompress. When I had the finished product in my hands, Emily and I got back in the car and headed to the Florida Mall, because clearly I had not had enough adventure for one day.

We arrived at the mall with no problems, and the place is huge. We visited familiar stores like Payless and H&M and Garage, and unfamiliar stores like Forever 21 and Hot Topic and Charlotte Rousse. I found hardly anything that was my style, but Emily had a blast! There was a Beauty and the Beast shirt in Hot Topic that I might order online in my size, and several Doctor Who items that I dearly wanted (including Ten's sonic screwdriver. Uhm, yes please?) but I didn't get anything except some fancy tea from Teavana that I finished off the last of at home way too long ago.

As we got in the car to head home, the rain started. Of course, what did we expect? It had been beautiful all morning! The rain had to come sooner or later! We waited for a few minutes to see if it would pass, but the storm looked too big and the car was stifling. So I drove, carefully and slowly in the Florida rain.

And took a wrong turn. A lovely young man at the toll booth directed us back in the direction of Disney world and off the highway to Miami so that we could get back home. Nearly there, and I realized I had yet to pick up my new costumes for deployment this week. I'll be working at Animal Kingdom! And I finally have a costume that is ridiculously ugly enough for me to feel like I work for Disney World! :)

So we drove to AK Costuming, and I go there running through the pouring rain, just as the closed the doors. I knocked and begged the lady there to let me in to get my costume. I'd gotten lost and was deployed and just needed a costume. She sighed and opened the door and showed me exactly what I needed. I expressed my thanks by calling her my hero. She giggled so that I knew she wasn't really mad and told me to have a good night.

I did! Emily and I went to get gas and groceries and got home and I felt like a real big kid driving around in my little red car. I got home and skyped my mother, finding she had not had a heart attack at the idea of her daughter jumping out of a plane (phew). And I facetimed my dad and brother and aunt and uncle and cousins in Ontario whom Dad is visit for a few days. They all called me crazy, and I told them it was awesome. I even got to talk to Tanya and Greg for a bit this evening. It's been a good day.

Now, I'm off to bed, but this is what I've learned today:

If you are healthy and not afraid of heights, you have to try it. It was the most terrifying thing I've ever done in my life.

It was also the most fantastic, the most exhilarating, the most liberating thing I have ever done in my life. There is nothing I can't do now. I have done the extremest of extremes and not only lived, I enjoyed it. I jumped from 18,000 feet up, the highest tandem jump in the world. There is nothing I can't do, be, see, or dream. There is nothing I can't have, want, or dare.

"There are people out there who will tell you that you can't. What you've got to do is turn to them and say, 'Watch me.'"

 I went Skydiving and I liked it. I feel invincible. Nothing can touch me, and I dare it to try.