I woke up exhausted on Sunday morning. I mean, heavy head, sticky eyes and yawns that lasted longer than four seconds.

“You ready to jump?” Rob asks. “Are you ever really ready to jump out of an airplane?” I ask back, because, really that’s the right answer, I think.

The weather hated us on Sunday – “weather holds” were announced several times, pushing our jump well into the evening. But it worked out. Around noon, as we arrived, I asked my sister, “wouldn’t it be great to jump when the sun is setting? Oh well, maybe next time.”

But then we did. We did jump at sunset.. and it was spectacular. …but let me back up a bit.

I was calm. Although, I expected that. I had made a deal with myself to be collected about the experience, if for no other reason than to remind myself that there have been braver people than me do this a million times, so really, let’s not start crafting the Medal of Honor or anything. It’s just skydiving.

Just skydiving.

I think the minute we start telling ourselves that everything is a big deal, we don’t execute our ideas. Our dreams. Our plans. For years, I convinced myself that I wasn’t “big enough” or “important enough” to do a lot of things. Crazy right? Given that the majority of posts on my blog are about doing things and making my life happen, I really just wanted to tell you that, if nothing else, yes, you can pull yourself out of the dumps; so high out of the dumps, in fact, that you might just find yourself staring at the world you once felt was too big for you, from 13,000 feet in the thin, cool air, thinking about how small things can be. It is possible.

The moment when I let myself sink into the experience and just be 13,000 feet in the clouds was when the door opened and two solo divers did sort of an “alle oop!” while holding each other’s arms and, just like that, surrendered their fears to the sky. Just. like. that. they were flying ...and then it was my turn.

I stood on the edge of the plane, door open, smelling the air up there, and looked down. I couldn’t see the ground, although I’m not even sure I wanted to. I could hear my instructor counting.. “1, 2, 3…” and then, it happened. Forever, I want to remember that feeling of being “pushed” off the edge, into something wonderful, because Lord knows there have been times when I could have used a push. That feeling, I want to preserve.

My stomach dropped, like the way it does when you’re nose diving on a roller coaster, but more intense than that, because the vortex is so fierce. If there was a moment of fear for me, it passed quickly enough for me to just understand that I was flying just then.

With my face pasted to my skull – the winds were tremendous – and finding it hard to inhale, I talked to myself: “just breathe. just watch. just breathe. just watch…”

I didn’t want to miss a moment.

I opted for getting video and photos (I didn’t want to be that guy who doesn’t… Rob) and gave myself a secret high-five for it. The camera man, Eric, grabbed my hand and spun me around, watching me experience this for the first time ever; between him and my instructor (who was on my back) these guys had more than 20,000 jumps. I had one.

One.

But I had it, nonetheless.

The whole experience is just 20 minutes, from the time the small airplane whisks you up into the clouds, to the time gravity pulls you back down again. I can’t even get through mid-town traffic in 20 minutes, let alone make dinner, get a manicure or even take a shower (I like my showers) in that quarter of an hour; but just then, 20-minutes served to be enough time to change me – to shift my perspective, even for just that short period of time, because, believe me, from way up there the problems and fears we have way down here just don’t seem that big.

So, what’s life like back here on solid earth? Well, busy. Back to forward motion. Moving fast. My big birthday party is on Saturday; I sent out invitations, ordered flowers and have my outfit picked and ready to wear. But the “big day” seems like a fun formality now; I feel like this day has happened already, over and over again. I don’t expect to feel any different when I wake up on Saturday, one year older, although I’ll feel like the mission to reinvent myself is complete, at least for now.

A year ago, I was in a different place: scared, confused and hungry for something. Today, I’m still all of those things – that’s how I roll; that’s what fuels me, I guess – but I’ve learned to turn those feelings into actions and progress, not complacency and paralyzing fear. And, after crossing #1 off the List, I can safely say that you can stare at your obstacles, giving them more definition than they deserve or you can rise above them, look down on them …and then dive right in.

***

Thanks to SkyDive Burnaby for giving me that push.