I’m what you would call an adventure junkie. I’ve traveled to third world countries, jumped off cliffs, snorkeled the Great Barrier Reef and more. I’ve always thought of adventure as it is defined in point #1 on Dictionary.com: an exciting or very unusual experience. However, this past weekend I was faced with the reality of why it can also be defined as point #3: a bold, usually risky undertaking; hazardous action of uncertain outcome.

A group of co-workers and I have had plans to go skydiving for months and as the day approached nervousness was not an emotion on my radar. I’ve done this before and was purely excited. We arrived for our 4 p.m. appointment and the sky was hazy, but still clear. As we were filling out paperwork a storm moved in so we waited a good while for it to pass. Finally, the radar showed we were in the clear and three of the five of us suited up and prepared for take-off. As we were getting on the plane, I looked on the horizon and saw a few storm clouds. Nervously, I eyed my instructor and asked if we were okay, I was assured all would be fine, so I boarded and tried to stay positive.

A normal jump is 13,000 feet, but as we reached 8,000 we were immersed in clouds and the sky was dark. In a hurried furry the pilot told our instructors it was time to jump and with limited instruction I found myself on the edge of a plane staring into a completely cloudy abyss. I knew this didn’t feel right, but trusted in what I thought was a reliable company that they would not send us on a dangerous mission to risk our safety and their reputation.

Falling into a storm cloud is an experience that is difficult to put into words. Imagine the thickest fog you have been in and multiply it by 100. I wasn’t sure what was up, down, what way I was falling, what direction I was turning and I quickly became nauseous. My instructor did the best she could to not show her fear, but as more time passed with zero visibility she started to voice her concerns saying, “we need to get out of this so I can steer” and “I just need to get us out of this cloud”. Finally we emerged into the open, but by this time the wind had taken a complete 180 and we weren’t going to make it back to the landing strip. “I’m sorry, but we’re going to land in that cornfield,” my instructor told me.

As we were landing the downpour started and the hail soon followed, but once on the ground the reality of what we had just experienced began to come out. My instructor has been jumping 16 years and has over 10,000 jumps under her belt, but as she hugged me she told me this was the worst condition she had ever jumped in. When we returned to base, emotions flared and many were angry that we were allowed to jump in the first place.

This video of my friend Maria, who jumped with me, illustrates the experience. Notice the storm clouds  in the background of her beginning interview and the actual jump at the 2-minute mark. The photographer lost Maria immediately, but continues to film his journey through the cloud. Compare this to Kristin’s video who jumped after the storm had actually passed and the reality of our visibility becomes very clear (or hazy, as the case may be).

In the end, thanks to the great instructors, we all landed safely and got vouchers to go back and jump on a clear day. I plan to continue to live my life adventurously, but it’s moments like this that make you realize the trust level you should place on a company that is ultimately trying to make a profit. People with more experience than I had concerns about us jumping and I continue to wonder why nobody spoke up and questioned if this was the best idea. I had concerns, but chalked it up to normal nerves and kept my mouth shut. Groupthink can be a very powerful and dangerous concept and in the future, I hope I will trust my gut.

Photo credit: Madeline Koch

Five years ago today I arrived in the amazing country of Australia to spend 5 months living, learning and laughing. Because I’m nostalgic and a tad sentimental (just a tad, right?) I pulled out the journal I kept on my trip to read through and relive some of the nearly forgotten memories.

I’ve always been a big quote girl keeping notebooks full of quotes I found interesting, inspirational or simply amusing. They are littered throughout the journals I’ve been keeping since I was a little girl. So, I thought I would share a few I collected on my Australian journey.

“To live is so startling, it leaves little time for anything else.” – Emily Dickinson

“I’m good. I’m always good. Beautiful day.” - overheard from a random Fijian

“We might return to some of our oldest questions and find their answers staring us in the face. What is the meaning of life? Life. Why are we here? To be here, to be-long, to be.” - David Suzuki

“It is not necessary to deny another’s reality in order to affirm my own.” – Anne Wilson Schaef

“Youth is not a period of time. It is a state of mind, a result of the will, a quality of the imagination, a victory of courage over timidity, of the taste for adventure over the love of comfort. A person does not grow old because they have lived a certain number of years. A person grows old when they have deserted their ideals. The years may wrinkle the skin, but deserting their ideals wrinkles the soul.” - Unknown

“To escape criticism: do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.” – Elbert Hubbard

“The whole enterprise, if you focus on the need and not the greed, makes the labor worth it.” - Darcy, a man who brought food to campus every Tuesday to feed those in need.

And lastly, an excerpt from my final entry. Reading it transports me back to that time and place and feeling so intensely. This is why I have always loved to journal and this is why I now love to blog.

“I am sitting in an airport waiting for Jenna and the boys to pick me up for one of our last nights together, for sure our last night out. New Zealand, which was always in the distant future at the end of my trip, is now over and my emotions are a complete jumble. Words cannot describe what I am feeling when I think that I will be back in Minnesota  in only three days. My stomach immediately turns to knots, my heart starts to ache and yet, in a strange way, I feel like I’m ready to be home. I’m excited to see everyone and I feel like it’s time to be settled for awhile.

It’s interesting that the fears I had about coming here. My fears that I wouldn’t meet anyone I connected with, that I would miss the people at home too much, is now replaced with a fear that I will say good-bye to the people who have become some of my best friends and I won’t see them again. And I fear that everything I’ve learned here, all the ways I’ve grown and changed and all that I’ve experienced will turn into nothing but distant memories and a few pictures I look at every now and again. I don’t want to forget anything. Not one detail.”