When I was little, I was the last kid to jump off the diving board at swim class. I was terrified of heights. Or depths. It took three instructors AND my mom to get me to jump. Once I did, I wanted to keep jumping and do what the other kids were doing. Well, class ended after it took them a half hour to get me in the water. I was a pissed off tiny human and screamed the whole way home.
When I was in fifth grade, the school took us to Chicago. The whole class went up into Sears Tower and when my ears popped in the elevator, I was done with the whole trip. I did NOT want to go out to the glass floors and look down to my death. My best friend and teachers forced me to get a picture for my mom so she wouldn’t think I was scared. I swear to god, I thought I had a heart attack at age ten and cried for my mom on the way back down.
My freshman year of high school on the family vacation, my mom thought it was a good idea to take her three terrified children up to zipline. Now who in their right mind would take three innocent kids to plummet to their deaths? She paid a pretty penny for all of us to hang by a thread over some docks going five thousand miles per hour.
I know I’m exaggerating a tad, but all of these events scarred me. Normal people walk in on their grandma naked (which I also did) but I had to endure near-death experiences before puberty. Yeah, my puberty was late because I was the size of a shoelace. Boobs? Never heard of them.
Anyways, I was terrified of heights. The thought of an airplane scared the living shit out of me. Until that fateful day the summer of 2017. My godmother needed a babysitter for her two children because their nanny bolted for some reason. Guess where they were located? ATLANTA, GEORGIA. I couldn’t say no to her! She’s my idol. I could never.
I packed my bag for one week and left the next day with my retired grandpa who made seven stops on the way to the airport one hour away. (It took us maybe two hours.) I made him park in the garage and walk me in. He got all the way to security with me before he had to leave. I honestly thought he was playing a trick on me saying he had to stay there while I left. WRONG.
So he left me and told me good luck. I asked so many workers where to go and what I needed. OH AND DID I MENTION I WAS FLYING ALONE FOR MY FIRST TIME ON A PLANE?!?!?! Yeah, I wanted to kill my mom. Thank god my godmother got the aisle seat for me. (I was six feet tall at seventeen years old.) I was on the phone with my grandpa until the absolute last second when the flight attendant yelled at me for the second time.
You know the worst part about flying for the first time?
Realizing you really aren’t scared of heights and it feels like a car ride for an hour.
In 2018, I went to Atlanta again. I flew in the window seat. I watched the ground get smaller and smaller and I loved it. I almost watched it the whole time. It even rained and I love the rain.
Why didn’t I just jump off the damn diving board when I had the chance?