Why Everyone Should Jump Out of a Plane... Once.

I live a pretty "safe" life. I will plan a trip out to the last detail to ensure nothing goes wrong, I will write an extensive list when packing for camping to ensure I don't forget anything that I even have the slightest chance of needing, and I always lock the door when I'm home alone (even though we live in a city where crime is practically non-existent). Playing life on the safe side has worked out pretty well for me. I'm financially secure and own my own home, I've never had a broken bone or been in a car accident, and although I've had lots of "wins" in my life I've been blessed with very few losses.

I guess another side to this is that I like to control a situation to ensure that I feel "safe". My husband will be the first to tell you that I am a nervous passenger in the car because I worry that the driver is going to crash us into the car in front of us. I'm not a big fan of abrupt change because that leaves me open to the unknown, and the unknown scares me because I am not prepared for it. Yes, I am realizing more and more that I am a control freak who hates taking risks. So what do you do about it? You strap yourself onto a big burly man who is intent to jump out of a plane with you along for the ride. Of course.

I never expected to do it. I'm one of those people that has nightmares of falling. The kind of person that stays a long way away from the cliff's edge in case the earth crumbles away under my feet. So a little over a year ago, when some friends and my husband were talking about going skydiving, I laughed.The crazy fools. Then a discount coupon came out for tandem skydiving, and for some reason I let peer pressure take over and I bought one. Then came the actual booking of it (woah, wait, this is HAPPENING?) and one week after our wedding we were pulling into the airport. Now, for those of you who have never done it, allow me to explain what happens next. They get you to sign a waiver that extensively says that if/when you injure yourself or DIE you can't sue them, or have your family sue them. Cue the sweaty palms. Actually, at this point I was starting to freak out enough that I wrote my birthdate wrong on the sheet. So next I figured we'd be spending an hour or two in a classroom learning how NOT to die as we hurtle towards the earth. Um, not so much. It was like a two minute demo on how you should cross your arms as you go out, arch your back as you're falling, and lift your legs/slide on your butt as you land. TWO MINUTES. Then they have you in a jump suit and straps and you're out the door waiting for the speakers to announce you're to load into the plane. I'll admit, even at this point I was thinking maybe I would just go up in the plane and watch everyone else jump, then ride safely back down. After a few quick photos, next thing I know we are in the plane, and actually at this point I am feeling pretty calm. A plane ride, I've done this many times before! (And, actually, landing is the scariest part of plane rides for me!). So, my jump partner is crazy. Like the type of crazy that probably would do a jump naked, or wear one of those bat suits and fly next to the cliffs. Crazy. At this point I am just hoping that he's not also suicidal. Next thing I know he's strapping himself to my back. I'm double checking the straps and he tells me that if I keep fiddling with them it's my own fault if I fall off. I stop fiddling. I turn around and people are jumping out. Wait, this is HAPPENING?!? There go my friends. There goes my husband. Shit, we're moving towards the door. Well, he's walking/shuffling and I'm along for the ride. Next thing I know we're hanging out the door and counting down. At this point I couldn't turn back if I tried...

Now we're hurtling towards the earth and... I'm smiling! I'm also screaming all sorts of profanity, but I am acutely aware that I am smiling because my teeth are freezing. It was spectacular. I'm falling, and I am enjoying myself. Then I start to wonder if the chute should have opened yet, it feels like we've been falling for a while. WHERE'S THE CHUTE? After a couple of seconds of panic, I'm hauled up by the armpits (and crotch?) as the chute opens and we abruptly slow down. Phew. My jump partner gives me the reigns to the chute but I hand them back to him right away. For once in my life I don't want to be in control and am quite relieved to give it up. I feel so... alive. I think there are tears in my eyes. My jump partner wants to do spirals (he's crazy!) but I just want to float down and soak up the moment. Landing proves more difficult than I thought because I don't have a whole lot of flexibility in my legs, but I make it with no scuffs or bruises. The straps are undone and I run over and kiss my husband. There's a lot of yelling and arm waving as we reunite with our friends. It's over and the whole thing, from signing our lives away to this moment, took just over an hour.

And we feel exhilarated. Like we can take anything on in the world. Like there is no challenge that could EVER come our way that we couldn't overcome. And that is why I am recommending the experience to anyone out there. Because that feeling never really went away. I STILL feel like I can take on the world.To prove it to myself again, I held a huge bird while we were in the Dominican last April. It took like 4 days of convincing myself, and my hands were sweaty and my heart was pounding... But once you've jumped out of a plane holding a bird is really no big deal right? I'm looking for my next challenge, if anyone has any suggestions. 


Ok, so maybe you don't actually need to jump out of a plane. The point is to challenge yourself with something that you thought you would NEVER do. Just do it. Once. To prove you can. The feeling that you get from it will be worth it.

Here I Am, Stuck in the Middle (With You?)

Here's a question that has been nagging me lately: When did a little bit of controversy become so... controversial? Ok, so I realize that the question itself doesn't make the greatest amount of sense, but what I mean is that I wonder when we all stopped wanting to talk about the things that we all have different opinions of. Ok, so maybe it still doesn't make much sense. Allow me to try to clarify...

One thing I have always liked to do is to spar in a little bit of a debate. It doesn't really matter how much I actually know about the subject sometimes, chances are I have an opinion on it anyway, and I like to get a back-and-forth going with someone else. Actually, I think this is actually how I end up learning the most about something, because chances are this will bring up facts and opinions on the subject that I had no clue about before. Another thing I have noted about these kind of debates is that sometimes I actually agree with the opinion of the other person, but I will actually try to find the counterpoints from the other side, just to keep the debate going. Maybe some people find this as me being argumentative. I like to think it's a healthy way of keeping everyone's mind open to the possibilities. I've been thinking recently about why it is that I seem to be able to flip back and forth between one side or the other, and what I have come up with is that it seems like a lot of the time I actually fall somewhere in the middle.

Now, I feel like some people may fear the middle. It makes it sound like I am wishy-washy. Like I can't commit to an opinion or side. I would argue against that (of course!) with that it is actually a harder commitment to be in the middle than it is to choose an actual side. Choosing sides is easy. You'll find a large community of people on whichever side you choose, and chances are they will have very strong opinions to back you up. Being in the middle is in-itself an active choice. I choose to be in the middle because I want to leave myself open to hearing both sides of the discussion. Some examples:

Politics. I know, for some of you your eyes are glazing over right now. I'll try to keep it short. Politics fascinate me because it seems like everyone has, for the most part, a common goal, but very different ways to try to get there. You've got one party that's all about the business and one party that's all about the environment. Of course I'm voting for the one who is somewhere in the middle. I think choosing too strongly towards one side or the other is going to throw our country into trouble. I could write a whole blog on my political views, so I will leave it there.

Religion. I've got friends that are atheist, and I've got friends where their faith is who they are. For a long time now I have identified as being Agnostic (which is NOT the same as being Atheist, look it up!). I'm not going to argue that either side is wrong, and I am willing to hear both sides of the argument. In fact I think that where religion becomes a problem is when people fall TOO strongly on one side or another and lose sight of the fact that ultimately we're all just people, and what we are letting divide us is ultimately just our own opinions.

A further note on the religion issue: I have heard a lot of people say that religion is what starts a lot of wars. I don't really believe this is true. I think what actually starts wars, divides people, causes bullying, and destroys the world is one thing: Intolerance. You don't always have to agree with someone, or expect them to believe in everything you do, but you do need to understand that they have just as much right to see and do things their way as you do your own. It's when one side feels that the other side is so wrong that they need to be stopped that the whole thing falls apart. Maybe if they actually had an open discussion with someone from the other view they would actually see that they really have a common goal and in fact are not so different after all. Maybe a little bit of controversy could pay off?

Who decided that things need to be so black and white? In my opinion, what the world needs is a whole lot more shades of gray. It creates a much richer picture, don't you think?

One is Silver and the Other Gold

*Disclaimer* - I actually started writing this blog post once and then nixed it when it became this overly sentimental dribble. I'm rewriting now because I figure it's MY blog and I can write about whatever I feel like. So, on that note, enjoy!


Do you remember that song from elementary school? The one about making new friends? Well, just in case you don't have the knack of remembering pointless song lyrics that I do, I'll tell you:

Make new friends, but keep the old.
One is silver and the other gold.

Yes, that is correct, today's post is about friendships. More specifically the older ones, but I'll get to that in a moment. One thing I have noticed so far in my adult life is that it seems a lot harder to form friendships. I don't so much mean that it is hard to make friends, or friendly acquaintances at least, but those sort of tight knit friendships that you know will last through anything. I don't know if it's because we're all so busy with our family time, or what exactly is missing, but I feel like it's just a heck of a lot harder to form the kind of friends that you know have your back even when you feel like giving up on yourself. I find myself wondering quite often if other people notice this as they get older as well. If we're just a bunch of people wandering around looking for our next "bestie" but with too much pride to admit that sometimes we just feel like nobody "gets" us quite the way we wish they would. (At this point I would like to add another disclaimer that my husband totally gets me and supports me, but since he's now family I am not clumping him into the broadened "friend" category as he is so much more than any friend could be.)

I have known my very best friend for over 16 years now. Granted, I would say that we've only really been close friends for about 11 or 12 of those years, but that's still a pretty big deal when you're only 27 years-old in the first place, so it's basically half your lifetime. My best friend also lives over 5000km away and we haven't seen each other face-to-face in about 4 years. He's also a guy, which has had it's own fair share of complications. Growing up I think our friendship confused a lot of people in a way, and most likely my parents as well. I remember having to fight for the right to have him over when my parents weren't home because they feared all of the shenanigans we might be getting into. In truth, our friendship started out more as the fact that I kept dating all of his good friends and they kept moving away. I guess we ended up feeling more like we were both left behind and needed to fill that hole with someone else to hang out with, so we filled our days with thousands of games of ping-pong, pool, darts, air hockey, basketball, bowling... Whatever competitive thing we could think of and I would inevitably lose at (with the exception of darts, I totally rocked at darts). Anyway, sometimes the best friendships form out of the strangest situations, and this is where I found mine.

I've wondered time and time again what actually makes our friendship the most important one to me, and I think really what it comes down to is that he has NEVER let me down. I'll admit, I am stubborn and have not always been the easiest friend to get along with. When warned that I was likely not making the best dating decisions I always ignored his warnings and did my own thing anyway. Inevitably this would always lead to me getting my heart broken and when I found myself up late at night wanting to cry my heart out, guess who was there to offer me some kind words and to cheer me up the next day. When I was way too distracted to pull off a decent group project in my senior year, guess who threw my name on his project so I could get a perfect mark (to be fair, he totally owed me for years of allowing him to copy my lab reports!). Through the years I don't think he ever set up plans with me and canceled at the last minute, or ever said he was too busy if there was a time I needed him (and even on one occasion invited me over when it was a guy's game night but I was feeling down). Even now, as an adult, I know that I can always send an email if I need advice or just a listening ear.

The other side of it is that I have always felt that I can be myself. I mean my true self. We might tease each other or (more in my case) roll our eyes, but the truth of the matter is that we are friends because we actually like who the other person truly is. I am not sure if that actually makes sense. What I am trying to get at is sometimes it seems like people in a social setting are fake. Like they are trying to better than everyone else, or fit some sort of image that they are trying to portray. With my best friend I am a complete and utter loser and he still wants to hang out with me.

This isn't to say it's always been easy. We've had some times when we've talked less, and one argument that almost cost us our friendship (but it turns out he was COMPLETELY right). We've had some times where our significant others at the time maybe didn't so much approve of our friendship with a member of the opposite sex. We've even had some times where maybe one of us thought there was the potential for something more than just friendship. But through it all our friendship has persevered and maybe even grown stronger. It is in fact all of this history that has made the friendship golden. When I look back at the years that have gone by I can't imagine going trough it all without him, and when I look towards the future I can't imagine not having him there to listen to me complain about the woes of married life (just kidding!).

So, to all you blog readers (all what, 4 or 5 of you?), here is my recommendation. Yes, make new friends. And in fact, some of those new friends will be darn good ones. But hold on to those old friends too. They're the ones that have helped to make you who you really and truly are, and the ones that will always be there for you when you need it most. The extra effort it may require to stay in touch is definitely worth it.
 
And to Alex? Happy Birthday and thanks for being the best friend a dorky girl could ask for. You really are like the big brother I never had. I love you and look forward to many, many more years of our friendship.

Amanda