Seriously, I did, on Dec. 3rd. I went skydiving, I know, I know, why on earth would anyone do anything like that? Truth be told, I have no idea. Either way it was one of the most exhilarating, scary, magnificent, beautiful, terrifying, i could go on…things I’ve ever done. I honestly can’t say what compelled me to do it, I didn’t really decide to do it until about two weeks before following a conversation I had had with Maricel who had just gone right by the Mount. She was telling me about her experience and for some reason I decided that I might as well do it in Hawaii. Yes…it is against policy, and yes insurance doesn’t cover it and yes you basically are signing your life away (have you ever seen one of those contracts? I don’t think I’ve ever initialed so many things) but it was worth it and I had permission from the parentals (weird right?).
Most people think that when you’re skydiving, you jump out of the plane, ya don’t, you fall from 14,000 feet and free fall for about 2 ½ miles towards the earth at speeds of upwards of 250mph for over a minute until the instructor pulls a cord that releases a parachute that will bring you to an abrupt slowdown and you come back to earth, hoping you land well (I didn’t…oops, it’s all good though, I’m not hurt that badly). This will become the way I describe Semester at Sea. There’s a little more confidence to something when you jump, when you fall, who knows what can happen. Things can be perfect, or things can be unexpected and you may blow off course or things just might go other than planned. I’m leaving Semester at Sea a different person, yet still the same. My view of the world is different, my values altered but not changed. I look through others eyes, not just my own. I can say, “this is how it is in India” because I didn’t read about it, I saw it and I lived it. Life isn’t all peaches and roses, but if we learn to see things a little differently, things will change. We need to dream and to live, to understand and to love. When I landed skydiving, I crashed, I’m not injured all that bad, just a cut up knee, a skinned/road burned arm and a strained ankle. It sounds much worse than it is, believe me.
Before leaving for the trip I spent months preparing and waiting to see what was out there. When I set out, I was who I was from home, the Angela that everyone knew and was used to see around. Then I started traveling, things were rapidly different and new. I struggled to grasp everything that could and to take it all in and to be in the moment. After a while, I slowed down and really took everything in. I took notice of certain details and people instead of simply flying through it all. now, we’re almost home, still the same, but different. When I get home, there will be the things that people notice immediately, and things that I will remember at first but over time, won’t be as important or poignant. However, there will be the things that will be with me forever, the people that have helped me to get here, the people that have I have met and the things I have seen and done. The preparation, the fall, the parachute, the landing, the healing of the knee, the healing of the ankle, the scar from the elbow…full circle. Same same, but different.
