Hello, I'm Marinus, 34 years old, and I'm here to bore you all with yet another story from a skydive noob. But don't worry, I'll try to keep it short. It all started when I booked a tandem-jump last Wednesday. The main reason was curiosity, and it was supposed to be only this one jump. Make the jump, check it off on my bucket list, and continue with life. It seems to turn out a bit different. Before the jump I was nervous like hell. I think you're supposed to be nervous, but this was a whole new level of nervousness. Dry mouth, sweaty hands, weak feeling in my legs, nausea etc. etc. From the time I came out of bed till the time I arrived at the skydive-centre. When the whole happening started, my nerves calmed down a good lot, but I was far from calm. I never was actually afraid of the jump, and there was only one moment I wanted to call it off. That was around the time we started falling, so too little and too late. In retrospect the exit was the best part. It was pure horror, but I happen to like horror. It only took 10 seconds or so, but I remember the whole thing in slow-motion. The short crawl to the door, sitting on the edge, the utterly insincere thumbs up I made to the Cameraman, the tandem master rocking back and forth to start the exit, me thinking "OK, I want to go home now", the feeling of loosing balance. It felt like it went on for minutes, instead of seconds. And then we went over the edge. I'm not sure what went trough me during the first couple off seconds of free-fall. I know I screamed, I know my brain wasn't able to compute what was happening, and there even might have been a short instance of panic. But after that I loved every second of it. It was possibly the best rush I ever had and it was over far too soon. As a bonus, I didn't mess up the things I had to do during the jump. Well, not in any spectacular way that is. And that should have been it, but it wasn't. Even before we had landed the thought popped in my head that I wanted to learn it myself. Which doesn't really makes sense because I'm not into extreme sports at all. I would have laughed if someone had said to me I would be seriously considering taking the AFF a week ago, but that's exactly what I'm doing right now. Actually, "obsessing about it" would be the better phrase. The problem is that it just doesn't fit my personality. I've some affinity with thrill-seeking, but never beyond the realm of theme-parks etc. I'm generally not a risk taker, and my hobbies include things like reading, gardening, gaming and walking. Go figure. And then there's more practical problems. If it's a sport I generally suck at it. It doesn't seem to be to complicated, but it seems like something that takes some time to figure out. I can afford the AFF course, but I can't afford repeating every jump 3 times. And lastly, I'm not sure how I will react to falling out of a plane when I'm not safely attached to some skydive-veteran with 29 years experience. I've waited for days now but I don't think this new obsession will go away. I've been obsessed with things before, but this time it's particularly severe. As in, the only thing that might help here is a lobotomy. Or giving in to the obsession. Well, the rant turned out to be a little longer then I had in mind, and there's slight undertones of madness I'm afraid, but I had to get it off my chest. Greetz, Marinus PS. my English isn't bad, but it isn't great ether, so please bear with me if it is a bit off, now and then.
