Jump

Let me tell you a story. It's a true story. It's a story of how I completely stepped outside my comfort zone and did something incredibly insane. It is not the story of how I am teaching in China, although now that I think about it, that also fits the description. No, this is the story of how I jumped off a cliff.

When my dear friend said she wanted to go cliff jumping, I immediately thought “good for you. I'll stay standing on the ground, thank you very much.” However, before I knew it, I (or some crazy alter ego, let's call her Crazy Erin) had agreed to also hurl my body off a cliff into the ocean (as well as snorkeling and a delicious beach bbq). My decision was helped along by the acquisition of a few friends who also wanted to jump off the cliff and the fact that there was no way I was going to be the chicken who didn't jump. So we made plans to book the tour for the next day.

I spent most of the night awake, feeling slightly queasy and calculating in my head exactly how fast my body would hit the water with gravity at 9.81 m/s^2, jumping from a height of 8 meters.

The next day I calmed down, however, when the time actually came to go to the cliff. I had some relaxing time sitting on a beach and snorkeling to prepare myself for the insane thing I was about to do.

Before I knew it, we were in a long boat on the ocean driving up to the cliff. Then there I was tying on rubber shoes. I stepped to the edge of the boat and thought “Am I really going to do this?” Crazy Erin said “shut up and dive off the boat” (I apparently developed a Smeagol-Gollum complex that day). So I dived off the boat into the ocean waves. And when I say waves, I do not mean tiny, gentle waves, but real, rolling ocean waves. As one of my friends said, it felt like we were at war and swimming to shore, and I completely agree. It was surreal.

After some intense swimming, I made it to “shore” which was actually a medium-sized coral rock jutting out of the waves. I gave my hand to our Thai guide and he helped me climb up onto the rock. I walked past him, saw the cliff, and said, out loud, “you have got to be kidding me.” I had been expecting stairs or some gentle slope up to the cliff, but instead, I was faced with a wall of jutting coral rock that I was supposed to just climb up. I did not sign up for this! I signed up to jump off a cliff, not climb one! I'm absolutely terrified of rock climbing!

I looked up at one of my friends climbing up, noticed his shaking legs, and was empowered by a moment of shared fear to climb up as well. Before I knew it, Crazy Erin was grabbing hand and foot holds in the rock and pulling herself up the side of the cliff. (Luckily, the actual rock climbing part was not very long, and then it was just a more “gentle” climb up and across uneven, jutting spires of rock).

Once I made it to the top, I watched a couple people jump into the water. I was standing by the 10 meter jumping spot, but I must have looked terrified because the Thai guide told me to go over to the 8 meter spot. I willingly obeyed (although Crazy Erin did feel a little disappointment at not jumping from the 10 meters).

All that was left for me to do was step across the uneven terrain a few feet and stand next to the Thai guide on the edge. Every part of my being wanted to reach out for the stranger's hand to give me confidence to step up to the edge but I (and this was me, not Crazy Erin) told myself “No. You will not be that person.” So I moved the few steps to the uneven edge on my own and looked down the 25 feet at the ocean below, thinking “okay, you're gonna jump, and make your body like a pencil, and you're gonna be fine, and you're not gonna drown, and you'll be fine, it'll be great...” Then:

Thai man: “3...”

My thoughts: “Why is he counting down? I'm not ready. I need time to prepare myself.”

Thai man: “2...”

My thoughts: “Really not ready. I don't want to jump when he says “1”. I can't!! No! I will jump at “1”. If I don't jump when he says “1” I will never jump. I will not be that person!!!”

Thai man: “1!”

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And then I threw my body off the cliff. My next immediate thought was “what did I just do?!?”, my legs started to curve up like that would keep me from hitting the water, and then I thought “no! Pencil! Pencil!!”, and then I slammed into the ocean butt first, gasped from the shock and pain, and ingested some salt water. Not the most graceful experience, but, I did it! I jumped off a cliff!!! I freaking jumped off a cliff!!!!

All that remained was to swim back through the ocean waves, avoid the boat propellor (narrow escape), climb the ladder, and throw my exhausted, exhilarated body onto the “deck”, and tell Crazy Erin, “you had your fun, and now we don't need to do that again for a long time.”