First jump: starting the journey

I had wanted to jump for years before I actually did it. I told myself I was waiting for the right time. There is no right time. There is just the day you finally drive to the dropzone and put on the suit.

First jump was a tandem. The instructor strapped to my back, the door slid open, and the world I had been thinking about for so long suddenly had a draft running through it. I remember almost nothing of the actual freefall. I remember the silence right after the canopy opened. I remember thinking, that was it. That was the thing I had been afraid of.

Most of the things I have been afraid of in my life have looked like that on the other side. Smaller than I expected. Quieter. The fear was a story I had been telling myself, and the jump was the first edit.

I knew before my feet were on the ground that I was going to do this again. Not someday. Soon. The next week I signed up for AFF, the student program that takes you from tandem to your own license. That sentence used to feel like something other people did.

I think a lot of us walk around with a list of identities we have decided are not for us. Skydiver, runner, founder, writer. The list is not based on evidence. It is based on momentum. We have not done the thing, so we cannot be the kind of person who does the thing. The fix is not motivation. The fix is the first jump.

I am writing this from the other side of that day, and I can tell you that the cost of the jump was lower than the cost of carrying the wanting around for another year.

Whatever your version of the dropzone is, drive there.