In less than twelve hours I will jump out of a plane.
I’ve wanted to skydive for a long time. Forever? Since before I started having the flying dreams, I think, so frequent and tangible that the power of personal flight started to feel familiar.
The flying – the being high above the ground part – is familiar. Even the rushing quickly towards the ground part, because, honestly, sometimes I am not quite so pro at the dream-flying. It always turns out okay.
The voluntarily leaping out of a plane in midair, no so familiar.
Mildly terrifying, actually.
That’s the paradox. There’s this thing I want to do, and I know I’m going to love it because I’ve dreamt of it for years. Yet there’s the tiny problem of getting underway. One second of hard part – the difficulty of taking one step and letting gravity take its course, and then fifteen thousand feet of dream.
That first step is the only thing I’m afraid of. At the moment. And not just tomorrow. In general. I’m afraid of single steps, but obsessed with what comes after.
Just afraid of that one step.
Poll me again on that one in the morning.