Personal narrative written by McKenna Kloes

The dive was the least frightening part of all. The dive happened in an instant, without warning, and without a clenched stomach during the many hours leading up to it. The dive, incidentally, was the release.

Skydiving is on the bucket lists of many, but it had never been my dream. To me, the idea of strapping yourself to another human and scooting off the edge of an airplane 12,500 feet off the ground didn’t seem like something one should pay $250 to do. And yet there I was, with some of my favorite people, signing my life away on forms that detailed the many ways we may die during this activity.

We were a group of women at a crossroads. One was coming up for air after losing herself in the overwhelming emotion of her looming graduation date. One had the hardest year of her life, enduring a painful breakup from a longtime relationship that drained her of self-respect. One treaded through the year with a thousand pounds of stress on her shoulders, realizing for the first time her tendency towards academic perfection at any cost. And then there was me: fraught with the distress of entering the “real world.”

I was about to start my final quarter of college, with zero interest in the degree I was about to receive and no clue where to go next. I, along with much of my generation, was worried about my vocational future.

Monotony. Fear. Despair. Frustration. Disappointment. These were the burdens we carried, each feeling alone in our struggles. It’s the ultimate trick we play on ourselves — convincing our hearts and minds over and over that we must be the only one feeling the way we do. We refuse to acknowledge the community of broken hearts along with the millions of others who are part of it.

As I considered my friends’ proposal to register for a sunset skydive, I reveled in the slow awakening of my senses. Nerves began dancing in my stomach to the drumbeat of my quickening heart. Hope for a bit of change dared to flicker somewhere inside of me.

I had been resigned to accept an average existence. I lived in the messy web of schoolwork, job stress and relational demands that consume in the sneakiest way. No one notices they’re being strangled until the very monster itself is imminently close to taking over. We knew we needed to take back our lives somehow. What better way than to jump? The exhilaration of the decision was the most I had felt in weeks.

The drive preceding the jump was a reflection of our state of being. Complaints of the anxieties of our lives were interspersed with the gentle clicking sound of finger pads on computer keys. We couldn’t escape homework and correspondence, even in the backseat of a car on our way to the planes we would soon dive out of.

Pulling up to Snohomish Skydive, we shut laptops and put phones in pockets, beginning to experience the true weight of this decision. The arrival seemed to buoy spirits and quicken hearts. The sun was in the early stages of its dramatic retreat below the horizon, as soft pink began to settle in the sky.

We walked outside to the sight of a small airplane with an open door and the nerves began to perform a quicker dance in the depths of my stomach. Each of us looked at one another with varying degrees of fear and stepped inside, strapped to our tandem instructors. The tiny windows prompted contemplation, as background noise of plane propellers and pilot preparation hummed around me.

Before I knew it, the plane was off the ground and flying over familiar places. As we went higher, my worries felt a bit further away. I was more grounded in that plane than I had been before takeoff.

Looking out over the mountains, I decided to dedicate my imminent jump to the present. Rather than condemning where we were in our lives, I decided we should honor it. We should honor the struggles that brought us closer. We should honor the broken messiness of life and give celebration to each piece of our heart that found the courage to mend itself, even though we know it will be broken again.

The plane ascended and I felt the fear that was gripping me completely melt away. My resolve to celebrate life was becoming stronger than the temptation to resent it with the rising altitude. Sooner than I was ready, we had reached the altitude where we would have to jump. I felt the instructor that was strapped to my back begin to scoot towards the door as I looked back at my friends, and then down in to the clouds.

“Here we go,” I thought. It was about time I celebrated the breath in my lungs and the beautiful life it allowed me to live. I closed my eyes, released my fears, and jumped forward into the unknown.