“Ohhh shit there goes my ex”

So I have talked with some people about my writing style and while I write this blog mainly for myself, it's not in my usual writing style. Just so I don't have to keep emailing my stories to curious people, I'm posting the first piece I wrote in my writing class last spring that is part of the book I'm putting together. And yes, I got an A :) (this was my first skydiving experience, not the most recent one, which meant something entirely different to me)...


Thrilled to be starting a new chapter of my life, the excitement builds as I sit inside the cramped, single-propeller plane, straddling the random guy in front of me.

“It’s a metaphor,” I tell myself, “I’m jumping out of my old life and into my new.”

My ex husband sits in front, blankly staring out the windows and my best friend at my left is ghostly pale. As it became clear to me that after 12 years together a divorce was inevitable, I realized I needed something symbolic to mark this change in life. I had this vision of myself perched at the door of a plane and looking back at my ex as I leave him and our life together and dive into my new life with my best friend right beside me.

“I hate you, why did you make me do this?” Kelly asks me.

“Because it’s awesome,” I reply, ever so glib.

Now, climbing to 14,000 feet, I realize that I was right…this was a great idea! Jump away from the bitterness and miserable fighting, soar thru the air of freedom and land a new, independent woman, ready to take on whatever life decides to throw at me.

“I have the best ideas,” I tell myself, “This was exactly what I wanted and needed this to be.” I’m ecstatic, I’m pumped, I’m ready.

I watch out the window of the plane that has packed in so many people, we look and feel like sardines, legs wrapped around the strangers in front of one another. The freezing cold air gives me goosebumps through my hot pink jumpsuit, the smell of 20 people is almost nauseating, and the cocky asshole that I’ll be jumping tandem with keeps yapping in my ear, but I don’t notice any of it. I watch the horribleness that has been these last three years get smaller and smaller, as does the world.
The door rolls up on the side of the plane, and my excitement and hopes for this to be something incredible fly out with the first jumpers, and panic sets in.

“The door just opened. Plane doors aren’t supposed to open. Holy shit, what the hell was I thinking? Jumping out of a plane as metaphor for life? Seriously?? Why do I always do this? Why am I the girl who always has to do the crazy stunts?”

People continue to tumble out the door of the plane.

“Ohhh shit there goes my ex!”

Scooting on my knees toward the door I know that my turn is next and every fiber of my being wants to grab hold of something and not let go. Simple pride engages with my survival instinct and it’s a battle to the death. Pride takes the victory and I’m at the door.

“We roll forward on three,” the cocky asshole yells in my ear.

I know it’s too late to back out now, I shut my eyes and clench my teeth and pray that I’ll remember everything from the class on what to do, and if not that the cocky asshole does.

“One…”

“Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God.”

“Two…”

“I’m a fucking idiot, what’s wrong with me.”

"Three!”

Out we roll, tumbling thru the air at 120 miles an hour, before I remember to arch my back to align myself with the horizon. I peek open my eyes and I don’t feel like I’m soaring thru freedom into a new life, I feel like my ears are frozen and with them, my brain. Cocky asshole taps me on the head to remind me to check the horizon. I don’t. He taps again to remind me to check my altimeter. I don’t. He taps yet another time to remind me to make sure I know where the handle is to pull the chute. I don’t check. All I can think of is how fast I’m flying thru the air, how amazing it is that I’m experiencing this, and not at all of what I’m supposed to remember and what it’s supposed to signify.

Finally, cocky asshole throws my arm in front of my face, where I notice on my wrist altimeter that it’s chute pulling time. I reach behind me for the handle and grab a little crotch instead…oops! Handle finally found, I give a good yank and the chute explodes open behind us. The ride down is peaceful and beautiful and amazing. I’m not stressing over my life and the new direction its taking. Instead, I’m watching the world and realizing that I do have this woman inside me that can handle anything.

Running in, I detach and rush Kelly with a hug and decide that I do in fact have incredible, amazing, awesome ideas. And while it wasn’t entirely what I thought it would be, skydiving certainly opened my eyes and was an incredible way to start my new life.