She did it: Paragliding in New Zealand

Today’s post comes from Kelly Seal, a writer and former speed dating host living in Los Angeles. She is embracing her single, carefree lifestyle with the help of many, many bad dates. You can visit her blog “Notes from the Dating Trenches,” at www.kellyseal.com.

I stood at the edge of the mountain, looking down thousands of feet below to the tiny green spot where I was supposed to land.

Paragliding in New Zealand seemed like a great idea when I was sitting in my 5×5 cubicle in Los Angeles, sorting through a hundred emails in my usual workday stress. I had just been dumped by a guy I met online. It was the last straw in a series of unwanted romantic adventures, so I wanted to run as far away as possible from my real life. I was done with dating.

In a moment of delirium somewhere between hope and despair, I bought my plane ticket. I didn’t care that I was going halfway around the world by myself, or that I would be attached to a parachute, falling in mid-air. It was a crazy idea, but for reasons I still can’t explain, I felt compelled.

When I told people about my plans, I was usually met with the question, “Who are you going with?”

When I’d say I was going alone, responses tended to lean towards pity.

“Why, could your friends not fit this trip into their schedules?”

“Oh, you should have asked me—I would go with you!”

“Why would you want to go by yourself?”

At first, I felt proud of my decision. Their responses showed only their own fear of doing the same, and I was not afraid. But after a few dozen of these remarks, I’d started to question the validity of my own intentions, that maybe I had romanticized the idea of being an intrepid world traveler.
And standing on the edge of the mountain just made me feel stupid.

I was driven to the top by a 22-year old guide who had just smoked his last paycheck. His eyes were bloodshot and he kept asking me if I was scared. He was driving over a dirt road and around steep turns at 50 MPH, so I wondered if he meant to ask if I was scared about paragliding or his driving. I just shook my head and stared at the road in front of me, gripping the dashboard. He might have laughed at one point, it was hard to distinguish the sounds coming out of his mouth.

When we reached the top, he handed me what appeared to be a spacesuit, entirely too large and meant to turn me into the Michelin Man once we were airborne. I put it on like a good student and waited for my instructions. Surely this suit would prevent me from plunging to my death should my stoned guide be unable to navigate the winds.

“Now,” he began, looking sort of towards me with bloodshot eyes, “I will count to three, and then you run as fast as you can towards the edge of the cliff. There will be resistance from the parachute, so you’ll feel like you’re dragging a pile of bricks at first.”

I nodded my head, unsure of how I would be able to glide through the air like the pictures in the brochure if I ran off the side of a mountain with about 200 pounds of equipment strapped to my back. My heart beat faster.

He’s done paragliding so many times, he could probably do it in his sleep, I told myself, breathing deeply.Besides, it’s not such a bad way to die…

“One, two three!” he counted a bit too quickly. I stood still, my frozen feet planted on the ground. This would be harder than I thought. I suggested he count to 100 to better prepare me.

Then he laughed. “Just kidding,” he admitted. “I didn’t hook you in yet!”

I watched him fasten me to himself and the parachute with round metal clips. A gust of wind knocked both of us off balance. I took another deep breath to calm myself.

“Ok, we’re ready!” He counted down again, just to three, but this time I ran. I saw nothing ahead of me but the edge of the cliff, and I made my way towards it as fast as my petrified body would allow. I didn’t think about what would happen next. I can’t say what propelled me forward when everything to this point had not exactly contributed to my sense of security. All I knew was that I wanted to run, and to glide down the mountain under the canvas of my parachute.

I fell for a brief moment, quickly and forcefully, until the parachute could catch the wind. It was in this moment of suspension and freefall that I inexplicably felt the most relief.

“What do you think?” my guide shouted into my ear from behind. “We hit nice wind today.” I briefly wondered what would have happened if the wind had been angry.

“This is amazing!” I shouted back, feeling the corners of my mouth pull back in a wide smile. And despite being completely at its mercy, spiraling dizzyingly towards a makeshift landing strip below, I felt a rush of warmth in the cold wind. This was what it feels like to lose control, to be completely free.

I realized in this moment, thousands of miles around the world from my home and thousands of feet up in the air, that my fears tend to hold me hostage. They keep me waiting on the top of a mountain with 200 pounds of equipment strapped to my back. I get sucked into my daily routine of obligations, schedules, and alarm clocks, of others telling me what I should be doing at any given time.

I get caught up in the desolation of my dating life, waiting for the right guy to magically appear. I realize with giddy clarity that really what I want to do is to run as fast as I can off the edge of the cliff. I want to experience the fun of the fall. I want to be completely alive in the moment. I am responsible for my own happiness, right now, and I don’t intend to waste another minute.

Because life can still surprise me.