“Want to go skydiving when the program is over?”
As friendly lunchtime invitations go, this certainly stood out. While others met the question with justifiably frightened repulsion, I surprised even myself when I casually agreed. Jen – my good friend, co-worker and instigator of this adventure – asked again whether I was serious, no doubt questioning my sincerity. This, too, was unsurprising, given she had only recently found out about my perilous fear of heights. I assured her I was serious and that we would start to look into it.
The likelihood of us actually sticking to our commitment was low. After all, how often is it that you hear a few people agree to do something completely outlandish and actually follow through with it? And yet, for some reason I knew this would actually happen. I theorized, for whatever reason, the ground would look so unreal from such altitude that my fear of heights wouldn’t apply. And since so many people had talked positively about jumping out of a plane, I figured there must be something good about it beyond my fear.
