The Lowest of Heights -- Update

Well, I did it.

But despite how that picture makes it look, it wasn't all fun and games. It was interesting, though. When I was going up, I expected my skydive to cause me to feel fear or exhilaration. I had not expected my primary feeling to be pain.

Probably a better representation of my dive

Immediately when we jumped out, I felt an intense pressure on my ear that I was unable to equalize the entire way down. Furthermore, the straps around my legs were very tight, to the point that I lost most feeling in my legs (although the feeling of pain was still alive and well down there). This only worsened when were in canopy.

My instructor told me to try to scootch the straps back down my legs so they weren't giving me an atomic wedgie, but that was quite impossible. So I just had to try to ignore the pain and enjoy the experience.

It wasn't all bad. I did enjoy it to some extent. It was just different than I had expected. The freefalling was not just the normal 'fun' part of falling. I was falling so fast that it felt like swimming, and it was difficult to breathe. However, there was a certain peaceful element. Despite falling at incredible speeds, the ground was so far away that it grew very slowly. And from so high up, the ground was a hazy distant thing, a world removed from reality.

It still feels surreal, like it didn't even happen.

One of my brothers felt the same way about skydiving as I did. However, certain other members of my family loved it and are already talking about their next dive.

I'm not sure I'd go again, but I'm glad I did it.

The Lowest of Heights

I'm not sure when I discovered that I'm afraid of heights. Probably 2002, when my family went to Six Flags Great America for the first time. I was nine. I don't remember much about that trip, but I do remember waiting while some of my family went on a roller coaster.

In 2004, we went again. I actually went twice, because a friend invited me to go with her family. I remember awaiting her family at the end of a balloon ride that wasn't even that high. They tried to convince me it would be okay, but I refused.

It literally has the word "easy" in the name.

I was frustrated with myself. Clearly thousands of people go on these rides every day, and it is incredibly rare for someone to be hurt. So there's no reason to be afraid. By the time my family went a little later that year, I was determined to try to push myself. So I agreed to go on the smallest full-size roller coaster they had to offer. 

The Whizzer. I sat with my dad, who made some joke about peeing to make me feel better. And it was a lot of fun. I felt kind of good about myself.

In 2007, my family took its first large vacation ever (it's expensive to go very far with 11 people). We drove all the way to Santa Maria Island in Florida. One day we took a detour to Busch Gardens Tampa. I went on a few more coasters. But not the Scorpion, because that one goes upside down. We were also there on a light day, and I watched three of my siblings stay on the Scorpion and go through over and over because nobody else was in line. I badly wanted to join them. But I didn't.

It's not even high.

Miserable, I decided that I wasn't going to let my fear stop me anymore. Next time I went to an amusement park, I would go on every coaster.

My chance came sooner than I thought. Two months later, I visited such a park while on a trip to Costa Rica. They too had a roller coaster that went upside down.

And...it honestly wasn't as bad as I had feared. Pretty fun, actually. And I felt good about myself. But I wasn't completely cured. In the spring of 2011, I went to King's Island on a school trip. When most of my friends wanted to go on the giant drop and one was too scared, I opted to stay with the one. But  despite what I said, it wasn't because I didn't want him to be alone.

The story doesn't get too much more exciting, so I'll wrap it up. In the following years, I went to amusement parks several more times. In 2014 I went back to Six Flags with my siblings. To Cedar Point in 2016 with some friends. And in 2018 my job sent me to King's Island. And not once did I sit out from fear. I still feel it, but it doesn't tell me what I can and can't do. I just have to be brave for the five seconds it takes to strap in, and then I'm stuck.

Here's a bad picture of me having fun.

Tomorrow I will be going a little higher. 13,000 feet higher. Maybe about 10 years ago, my dad and I agreed that when he got below the weight limit, we would go skydiving. His journey to sub-250 is a story of its own, but he's finally there and tomorrow we are celebrating with a little adrenaline. I just have to be brave for the one second it takes to step off the ledge.