‘Scuse me while I kiss the sky.
This past Sunday, a daring group of 6 fooligans from Los Angeles (one from Las Vegas) trekked on down to Santa Barbara to simultaneously poop their pants together. Ok, no one did but we were all pretty close to. Ok…ok, so only I was but I had a good excuse. We went SKYDIVING!
What an experience it was. Nerve wrecking. From the moment we pulled into the location, I could not manage to keep my hands from sweating. And I’ve never been more nervous filling out an application/contract that had the word “DEATH” in every damn paragraph. Hey, I get it that I might die in doing this so there’s no need to remind me every damn sentence, bro. The reminder was everywhere, only thing left was for the instructional video to have a part that says “And this is what your face and body look like after a failed drop from this high.”
This was me filling out the application. “Jesus, is it too late for me to friend request you?”
Once you’re all set and paid for and all there is to do is wait, you start getting less and less scared about jumping and more so start to build this nervous anticipation for it. It’s like waiting around for a rollercoaster as you see people in front of you waiting for their turn and seeing the faces of those who just came back from it. You start to realize that this is safer than that damn contract made it seem but that sinking feeling of not knowing what to expect is just sitting there in your stomach. As Tom Petty would say “the waiting is the hardest part.”
Strapped up and ready to go. The group of daredevils in all of our nervous glory.
Once you are on that tiny little plane headed on your way up you know in your mind there is no turning back. I think being there with all of my friends took away a lot of the fear away. Looking around at a plane full of familiar faces helped. Everyone didn’t say much but we had that look like “What the fuuuuck, dude?” but we all wanted to just jump already. Before the door closed, or actually before this bullshit little screen door shut, my lady had to be restrapped. I then noticed then that as she would return to the plane she would be the first one to dive. I guess that’s what you get when you play it all cool on the way to skydive and say, “I don’t mind going first.” I was so nervous for her and seeing her jump first was even more nerve wrecking. At the same time I was so damn proud of my nappy head. She’s a damn trooper. My cousin, Antonio, had the luxury of jumping with J.C. and home dude flipped him in the air. I was trying to keep my shit simple. Head back. Arch back. Open arms. None of this Xtreme skydiving shit for me. I’ll save that for next time if there is ever a next time.
Me before exiting the little airplane at 10.5K feet in the air. At this point, all “Padre nuestros” wont even save you.
In trying to come up with how to describe my skydiving experience I can think of hundreds of words to describe it as well as just draw a blank because there really is no experience like it in the world. I just don’t know how to justify the whole thing in a simple way. Cause let’s face it throwing yourself out of a perfectly working plane isn’t a simple thing. It was such an intense grand feeling being up 10,500 feet in the air and at the same time it was all a blur to me. No matter how much fear I had, adjusting to the feeling of free falling and then floating, I had no time to think, “Holy shit, I might die.” After I remembered how to breath normally all I could think of was “Whoa! This is pretty fuckin neat.” The skydiver instructor, I could tell, was trying to get me to scream or get all amped on the whole thing but being up there I was just taking it all in, it’s like he wasn’t there to me, although I wanted him to be there all the way. Sheeeeeeiiiitttt, imagine if he was like “Alright dude, you’ll be fine. Lates.” *unstraps* Seeing us all land, I just wanted to hug everyone. It felt like such a huge accomplishment we just couldn’t remove our smiles from our faces.
My cousin Antonio and I as we just waited around. Mr. Vuelta de Gato himself.
A great day with the best company of lovely people ever. Loved it all from waking up at 6am, the drive to have breakfast in Santa Barbara, skydiving in Lompoc, dinner and celebratory drinks afterwards back in SB and then bringing it all back home. I’d recommend everyone try it. One of the best feelings ever. Run and tell that.
