Sep 27, 2012: Soaring at 10,000 ft...

As I look back at this past month on this last day of September, I reflect upon an action-packed adventurous 30 days.  I started this month in San Francisco, spent the middle part of the month in Bordeaux, France, and ended the month on a high note by skydiving from 10,000 feet up in the skies!  Skydiving has been on my to-do list for years, and I finally decided to take the plunge on September 27 -- a date with permanent prominence in my life now.  September 27, 2011 was the day that my doctor called me at exactly 2:30pm to tell me that my biopsy results came back positive for thyroid cancer.  No amount of words can ever accurately convey the flood of emotions that went through me at that moment -- all the fear, loneliness, the disappointment and grief that overpowers you -- nothing can ever prepare you for the bomb that cancer is when it's dropped on you.  No matter how cliche it sounds, everything about the process leaves a person shattered.  For the past year, I've felt like I've been trying to glue back the pieces that was my life/me that was blown to bits.  As mentioned in past posts, this blog has been a direct consequence of me trying to heal myself.  As the one-year anniversary of my diagnosis approached on September 27, 2012, I decided that I wanted to celebrate the progress I've made in healing, as well as give myself something more positive to remember September 27 by, so that it's not just the day that I became another statistic of cancer.  I figure, what better way to celebrate and to reclaim this date in my life than to set-out to do something that's both risky and challenging, but would give me tremendous satisfaction in knowing I followed-through on a promise to myself.  Hence, skydiving!

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a walk in the park making this decision.  While I thought about going skydiving for months now, I didn't book the reservation until 2 days prior to the jump.  But, by then, I had gone through the rigorous decision-making process, and I was certain this was something I was committed to doing.  Though, just a week earlier, as I was on the airplane flying back home from my trip to Bordeaux, I remember thinking on the approach to land at Logan airport, the screen in front of my seat read the altitude at 5,000 feet and I thought to myself "gee, this looks so high-up, how am I going to be able to jump out at 10,000 feet!?"  Plus, all the waiver forms you have to sign prior to the jump don't help to calm the nerves, as the first sheet of paper you see is in big red capital letters saying "DANGER, SKYDIVING CAN KILL YOU!"  It was rather fitting that the anticipation and anxieties leading up to making my jump felt similar to the days leading up to my diagnosis -- the waiting and uncertainty is always the worst part.  I was surprisingly calm in being able to drive myself an hour away to the jump site, and I couldn't have asked for a more beautiful autumn day in New England to make my jump.  Given that it was cloudy the day before, and it's been pouring rain the last few days, I was so fortunate to have had a window of perfect blue skies on Thursday for skydiving -- as corny as it sounds, it was as if I was destined to do this on this date...

Unless you've been certified, it's a requirement that all beginner jumpers do a tandem jump (i.e., you're strapped to a professional).  My instructor, Keith, was wicked chill (I guess you have to be if you're a professional skydiver), but he was on the older side and I have to admit that I was concerned about his gray hair.  But, at this point, you just gotta roll with the punches.  The set-up of the skydive site was pretty makeshift, given that it's just a bunch of trailers on a field in the middle of nowhere -- another thing that serves as a final gut check that makes you question if one really wants to do this.  The plane itself is rather small, and the rickety sound of the propellers is also unnerving as you wait for your jump.  There's actually quite little training, as the instructor gives you some brief instructions on what to expect, but nothing extensive.  Thursday turned out to be a busy day at the site, as I had been scheduled to jump at 1pm, but got pushed to 3pm.  The waiting is the worst part!  By the time I finally did the jump, I was pretty eager at that point to get this over with.   

Priorities:  Make Sure You Take Good Pics of Me!

 

The absolute worst part is probably sitting on the plane, and watching the skydivers ahead of you get "sucked" out of the door as they make their jump.  It's not until after the jump do you know that it's really not as bad as it looks, but it does look awful when people make their approach out the airplane's door.  Getting to the door and out of the door is by far the biggest hurdle to get through mentally -- once you get past that, it is the most amazing feeling in the world to be floating in the air.  As I had suspected, it's one of those things that once you're in the air, you wish it could last longer!

For the five minutes that I was floating underneath the parachute, gliding back down to earth, I just tried to soak up one of the most amazing things I've ever experienced.  And, it was made more meaningful given the context of the day.  On the same date as the year prior, Sep 27,  I found myself experiencing feelings I again can't accurately convey to another person without them experiencing it first-hand, but unlike last year, this was the anti-thesis of all the ugliness unleashed in the year prior.  Back then, what I felt on Sep 27, I wouldn't ever wish on another person.  Conversely, Sep 27 this year, I hope everyone can get a taste of something similar to what I experienced via Skydiving.

Leading up to the jump, I hadn't told anyone that I was going to go skydiving, with the exception of my friend, Lucia, who had done this before and whom I informed so I could put her down as my emergency contact (just in case!).  It was something I needed to do for me, in the spirit of everything that this year has stood for me -- nothing's easy, but anything is possible if I put my mind to it.  Skydiving was a testament of how much progress I've made in asserting my independence and will to live life to the fullest for me, but it wasn't an easy thing to go through, and I've gained confidence by proving to myself that by handling the waves of emotions I experienced on making the jump, I can apply the same mindset to a lot aspects of my life.  

Lucia had given me a valuable reminder prior to my jump -- she told me to ask myself as I stood at the door of the plane what this jump stood for.  Thus, going into the jump, I knew my purpose was to leave behind all the negative baggage that I've been carrying with me for so long and to just leave all that behind, and just hang onto the more confident and stronger Linda that has evolved since that ugly day of Sep 27, 2011.  Skydiving was just proof of what has been there inside of me all along.  While I'm not so naive as to think everyday will miraculously now be as glorious a day as Sep 27, 2012, just from making one skydive, I will remember skydiving when life gets messy, as it so often is.  I'll remember that with all the hard decisions and tough calls I have to make going forward, I'll remember how scary it looked watching those skydivers ahead of me get sucked out the door of the airplane, but I'll know that once I jump, it's really not as bad as it looks, and the payoff waiting for me thereafter is worth every effort.  The key is just getting over that initial hump at the door...Most importantly, I'll forever remember the grace I showed under a pressure situation...

Like so many things in life, September 27 will forever be a bittersweet day for me.  Prior to skydiving, Sep 27 was just all bitter.  But without Sep 27, 2011, there would be no Sep 27, 2012.  There wouldn't be a skydive to relish in today, and there wouldn't be a 12 by 12 in 2012 in my life.  For that, I guess the cancer was "worth it" in the end.  I mean, how many people can say they went wine-tasting in Napa Valley, wine-tasting in Bordeaux, and went skydiving all in the same month!?  Thank you skydiving, for putting back the "sweet" in "bittersweet" on Sep 27 for me.  While I'll always remember how my heart sank when my doctor called me on Sep 27, 2011, I now have Sep 27, 2012, to remind me how I took a leap of faith and my heart was floating at 10,000 feet above the ground, but this time, I soared.  And, to continue to soar, is what I intend to do.  Sep 27, 2011 is the day I became a cancer patient, but Sep 27, 2012 is the day I turned into a cancer survivor...