Tried It, And This Happened: Skydiving
“So if your friends jump off a cliff, will you do it too?” Guess what my answer is?
Last summer, your girl went skydiving. Yes, I jumped out of an airplane — 13,000 feet over beautiful Oceanside, California to be exact. My boyfriend and I have talked about doing this for awhile and it’s been at the top of our bucketlist for a little too long. Finally, one day we decided to book our tickets with GoJump Oceanside (hyper link) and next thing you know, we’re strapped in and on the way up.
Our writer Tiffany Tran taking the plunge off their plane!
While driving down the coast of PCH, my stomach was in knots of anticipation and excitement. Note, I was the only FEMME in the group so of course I was keeping it cool as the other side of the pillow. But, we get there and the heat finally hits. “I don’t want to do this anymore” I think to myself, but I’m attempting to still keep my cool through the process. We go in, sign all our forms and wait 30 minutes for our group to be called. At this point I am internally not OK..
Our names get called and I am paired with the man I’ll soon be jumping out of a plane with, cool. He straps me up in this harness and buckles what felt like 100 buckles. “This is all tight and I won’t fall right?” I asked. He jokes and says “of course not”. We start loading onto the airplane and up we go. I’m thinking, “wait we did not even get a lesson on how to jump…”. I ask Tom and he says to me, “before we jump, I’m going to tilt your entire head back and we’re free falling. Legs up behind me and we keep falling until I signal to you that it is ok to pull the parachute.” I nod nervously thinking “I’m totally going to forget all of that the moment we start falling.
Two by two, people are jumping out of the plane with their tandem skydivers. I was up next. Tom tilts my head back and I’m thinking, “oh sh*t!!!!!” and everything happened so fast. Immediately after screaming my lungs out, I realize “this feels absolutely freaking amazing and liberating,” while mouthing “oh my gosh” about 50 times. Tom records me with the GoPro (I can assure you I look like a chipmunk). We’re falling for what feels 10 minutes when he asks me if I’m ready to pull the parachute. An instant jolt pulls us both back. I have to admit, it was not the best feeling. The harness was pulling me up by the inner thighs so I was in more than a little bit of pain. We stayed in the sky for another good minute just enjoying the 360 view of Oceanside. As we were about to land, I feel my legs tingle as I am unsure about this.
We land and I had to take a minute to just stand on my two feet again. And in that moment, I thought to myself, “I would definitely NEED to do this again.”
The experience was amazing and the anticipation is probably the worst part. Your nerves get the best of you but, the moment you jump, all of it flies away. It is truly a unique and adventurous experience that you need to try when life feels stagnant. Promise you this: my first time won’t be my last.