I'm going to go skydiving on Monday. I am afraid because just a few weeks ago a plane from the skydiving place I'm going crashed, killing four or five people, two of whom Erin knew. It seems bizarre to me that real people die in plane crashes. Actually, maybe it just seems bizarre to me that real people die.
But I want to go, not only because I've heard it's really fun, but because I cannot live in fear. When it comes to things like cliff diving and bungee jumping, I have always been terrified, but I have found that some logical corner of me is stronger than my terror. I'm afraid of heights, but I still do these things.
I think that I believe that if I can conquer my fear of heights (and plane crashes and the parachute not opening and just jumping out of a plane), I can conquer my fear of going crazy again this summer by thinking too much, going crazy again in general, being alone next year, moving across the country, etc. Skydiving is symbollic. If I can skydive, I can live, no matter how frightened and panicked life makes me.
Tomorrow is my graduation, and I guess that in a long-term way, I'm kind of frightened of that as well. It is also symbollic. I am no longer a child, no longer protected. Never again in my life will anyone have the obligation to take care of me (but myself). And I think that scares me, because in a way I feel nobody ever did take care of me, and now that I am an adult, it will for sure never happen. I never got a chance to be dependent. I think I needed that.
On the materialistic front, I got some Birkenstocks that I've wanted for four years, some headphones, and a lot of money for graduation. I will probably save the money for my Canada trip with my friends in July.
I don't want to be afraid anymore.
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"What I realized suddenly was that the true failure would have been if I hadn't given a damn. You can bandage a wound, set a broken bone, but not caring...you can't cure that and you can't recover from it."
"What I realized suddenly was that the true failure would have been if I hadn't given a damn. You can bandage a wound, set a broken bone, but not caring...you can't cure that and you can't recover from it."
About Me
- Lindsay
- Everything in my life is about to change, and I'm absolutely terrified. I breathe one instant at a time.
3 comments:
i think this idea of not having obligations towards a person once they are eighteen, off to college, and moved out is a very contemporary one and to a certain extent untrue. what is far more realistic is that former obligations decrease in their importance, change form, and for once you are responsible for creating your own--often mutual-- obligations.
but whatever. have fun being terrified and diving from a plane!
I had many of the same thoughts and fears both when I graduated and when I turned 18. It gets better, though. It isn't so scary after a little while. I love you.
Today is the day! I hope that this proves to be instrumental in facing other fears in your life, as you have hoped it will.
And, I want some details! I am so proud of you :)
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