Reserve Parachute

It doesn't truly hit me until the plane's rickety doors swing open to reveal the expanse of blinding blue sky that I realize we're meant to jump - right now.

They say you can learn everything you need to know about a person if you observe their reaction to fear. In my last session, Dr. Allison had professed this. "F.E.A.R. stands for the fork in the road. You can either ‘Forget Everything And Run' or ‘Face Everything And Rise.’" I make a mental note that if I survive this trip, my next order of business will be to fire Dr. Allison and find a new therapist that doesn't sound like an Instagram post or go by Dr. First Name.

But now, as my body begins to buzz with terror, my stomach drops into my shoes, and I feel a massive fart about to expel, I wonder, can I actually forget everything and run? I am at 14,000 feet, currently strapped to a scruffy stranger in a tandem skydiving harness, and we are about to jump - right now.

In fairness, we weren't complete strangers. His name was Tex? Or Rex? The crew was making final preparations for the finale of today’s activity but the man strapped behind me seemed in no rush and let the other pairs of jumpers ahead of us.

“Save the best for last, right darlin’?” Tex-Rex's voice was almost smooth and lilting enough to soothe my fraying nerves with its honey-gold country charm and Johnny Cash timbre. But the tiny plane's engine was like a lawn mower in my head, plus my inner regretful monologue for this whole solo vacation on repeat, You never should have gone alone. I'd signed up for this excursion yesterday, three mango martinis in, when Tex-Rex and his business partner found me at the swim-up bar.

"You look like a girl who's ready for an adventure," he'd flashed a sideways grin in my direction. "JUMP Hawaii is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. We'll be in the lobby tomorrow morning for all the guests who are ready to change their lives."

I couldn't remember the last time anyone had called me girl, I was sixty years old, but the next thing I'd known, I'd given my credit card info and set the alarm on my phone for the next morning.

Now, as other thrill-seekers lined up for the open airplane door, the Southern was drawl in my ear again, his face so close to mine that soft chin stubble grated the cheek I was now chewing from the inside.

"Don't worry, little darlin'," his empathetic tone had the authoritativeness of a sexy soap opera doctor. "I've done over one thousand jumps."

I nod wordlessly.

“I’ve even done it naked,” Tex-Rex put his hand on my unsteady elbow, leaning in so close he brushed my ear with his lips (which were much softer than I would’ve expected from a man who loves a good windburn). I wasn't sure if he was genuinely flirting or if it was an attempt to make me laugh, relax and have more fun, but my entire body just stayed frozen, horrified at my drunken stupidity and hubris for signing up for this.

In this tiny torn-up puddle jumper that looked like it may free-fall itself, I was huddled among strangers, not seated (because why would you need seats on a plane that wasn't going to land with the passengers inside). My husband and children were not even in the same time zone.

Ex.

Ex-husband, remember?

My hands clasped tightly together in some kind of unconscious prayer that I'd be ok after this. More than ever, the left one felt naked for not wearing the jeweled bands that had shaped the indent of my ring finger for the last twenty-five years. I felt the dent where the rings had been, a tiny scar-like tattoo in the place of diamonds and gold - an entire life's love taken away.

Hawaii had supposed to be a new chapter, a time to rekindle our flame, to allow us to put away the petty arguments, make love, and remember how we'd been. Zoey had just left for college, following Freddie two years earlier. Together, we'd survived the babies, the moves, the parenting, the layoffs, the deaths of our parents, the recessions - the long, tedious and exhausting years of adulting. It was our time to play again.

But honey, I just don't love you anymore.

His words.

And after all those years of stabs, slights, and evenings pretending to be already asleep, it was the final crack to bring the house down on our weathered, imploding relationship. He’d come out and said what we both knew to be true. Only one of us was finally brave enough to voice it out loud.

So he left the big house, leaving me to rattle around with an inventory of a former life, the boxes of kids' art, Christmas decorations, and knick-knacks from family trips. What to do now with our Navajo vases, Murano candlestick holders, and N.Y.C. snow globes proudly displayed in the newly redecorated living room that had finally begun to resemble a place where actual grown-ups lived now that the nest almost emptied?

I had foolishly hoped one of the kids would want to take something to decorate their dorms. But Freddy had joked only if he could make one of those tacky vases a bong (art major) and Zoey muttered something about the genocide of Native Americans in our capitalistic society (pre-law). So instead, I painstakingly bubbled-wrapped these artifacts of our shared history and placed them in a box labeled "Vacation Memories," telling myself the kids would want them because they’d feel differently when they were older.

We all would.

Wouldn't we?

But during the divorce mediation, my soon-to-be-former husband magnanimously allowed me to keep the big house and opted for a new apartment for himself. The moment of clarity hit me that these were reparations - in the form of real estate. The payment was due because there had been someone else all along.

This realization shot through my numbness in the way I imagined it would feel to jump off a cliff, like being flung from this airplane. In a total emotional free-fall, I had driven home to the big house sobbing, tore open "Vacation Memories," and smashed every piece of its contents at the big house’s newly painted living room walls, taking swigs straight from the bottle of 2012 Chateau Lafite we'd been "saving for a special occasion." When Freddie and Zoey found me passed out on the floor surrounded by broken glass, they insisted I needed someone like Dr. Allison to help me understand the essence of this new anxiety and fear of being alone.

As if I didn't understand fight or flight?

He'd flown the coop before we could fight, so I'd booked a flight, our dream vacation, alone, to battle for something much harder. To fight for something to hope for again. For myself.

I couldn’t really hear, but Tex-Rex was saying something about the time to move toward the door. He simply pulled me up with our shared harness, and we awkwardly hobbled, Tex-Rex not so much forcing me but certainly giving the air of authority this was going to happen.

I'd been the oldest one in this group by about forty years. Everyone else was college students from the University of Honolulu who sounded like they were still drunk from last night's partying. The pairs of us lined up, with Tex-Rex and me being last to go.

"Aaaaeeee!" a nineteen-year-old blonde screeched as she and her tandem partner disappeared out the door first. The rest of the kids shrieked similarly, nothing to regret besides the shots they'd done the night before, a life un-lived, walls unpainted, shelves to be filled.

But now it was time for Tex-Rex and me, and I wanted to Forget Everything And Run, or in this case, cower in the corner behind some old life vests and tires. I assumed this must happen for many people once they see what they've signed up for. Tex took another step to push my legs toward the open door.

"I can't!" I blurted, but I wasn't loud enough. I couldn't get my voice to the volume required above the buzzing engine. With another push, we were almost at the door.

"I can't! No! I don't want to do this!" I screamed again and planted my legs solidly into the ground. Maybe I couldn't forget everything and run, but I could forget everything and wait until we had to land again.

Tex-Rex was behind me, his warm breath on my neck. The caramel voice whispered into my ear, "Don't worry, little lady. You can."

"I can't! I can't!" I squealed, relieved that we were the last pair to go so none of the college kids would see the old boomer chickening out.

"In this life, you only regret the jumps you don't take," he gave a more decisive push step, and now we were at the edge of the plane. The wind whipped from the outside, scattering my thoughts like puffs of smoke. I was about to push back to take the seated position in protest, but Tex-Rex wasn't having it.

"Here we go! One, two, three, Yeeee Haaaa!" and before there was another moment to think, protest or push back to sit - we were falling out of the plane.

All at once, the wind whipped through every fiber of my being, and time slowed. The rushing, pushing, and falling ripped through my body, and I was sure I'd pass out from the sheer sensory overload of it. They'd warned us that some people blackout during their first jumps and don't even remember it happened, but that was not grounds for a refund, man.

But that's when we floated.

Terminal velocity, also explained during the ten minutes prior when all of us had signed our lives away to a bunch of stoney adrenaline junkies, where the force of the wind had equalized with the force in which we were falling, had morphed the feeling of falling to flying.

I could see the various water levels around the Hawaiian islands, the blues everywhere, the sunshine pouring over the sparkling ocean, everything in radiant technicolor - alive, alive.

We lived in this bliss for maybe about thirty seconds.

"Told ya!!!" Tex-Rex whooped in my ear. The connection between us was now electric.

"Yeee Hawww!" I screamed back, the chemicals in my blood pumping like mad. My pleasure centers in overdrive - no wonder this guy tried this naked.

"Alright, little lady," Tex Rex shouted in my ear, "Pulling the chute now."

Tex-Rex reached behind him and started to yank. Nothing came out. He did this a couple more times, and then the terror seized where the pleasure had been.

Oh my god, the parachute is broken, and we're going to die!

Immediately my thoughts went to Zoey and Freddie. How stupid I'd been to do this. Use all our family's travel points to take this pathetic revenge trip alone without my husband. Despite myself, my panicked rapid-fire thoughts turned to the first time he said I love you. Then Zoey and Freddy, my babies, Zoey's first steps in the garden, Freddie in a pirate costume, and back back back to our wedding, a lifetime of the promises of adventure with him drinking champagne from my white stiletto at the feet of his princess. I made it a point to buy a souvenir on every trip to commemorate our shared story, our happily ever after.

Suddenly, another pull tug, and we shot back up into the air like a broken frisbee circling wildly.

"The reserve chute, little darlin'," he said when I'd finally calmed down enough to open my eyes. "You always have to be prepared to use it."

I was sobbing at this point, crying, screaming, kicking, and flailing as we continued to spin through the sky. Not out of mourning that my husband and I were really over and my babies didn't need me anymore, but from the overwhelming joy and relief that maybe I would be on my own, but I'd still be alive - and yes, able to have my own story for once.

In the last moments, before we thudded to the ground, so overjoyed in our triumph over certain death, I turned behind and kissed Tex-Rex, deeply, with everything I had. He kissed back hard as the college kids whooped it up below us in the drop zone, and we victoriously floated back to earth.

One thing was for sure. This vacation memory needed no commemorative purchases. This one was burned into a new part of my brain and some things just won't fit on the bookshelf.