What happens after that drop?
Ten seconds of dead silence and then… an exhilarating whooshing sound sings to your eardrums as you feel your body being swung left to right by a force so great you wonder if it is the arms of God rocking you to sleep.
What drives a person to dive from a cliff, jump from a ravine, or allow herself to be plunged into nothingness head first?
It may be the trill, the adventure, or perhaps pictures and the bragging rights to boast to friends that she has done something no ordinary mortal can do.
Or perhaps the person if just an adrenaline junkie, one finds satisfaction in experiencing the extreme. I was definitely that sort of junkie. Between the ages of 20 and 25, that is.
Straight from college, I worked as a reporter for a community newspaper in Cebu. I tell you that job was the dream profession of someone who loves the action and likes to mix in some brain work into it. But I was in my 20s, single, living by myself with just about enough disposable income to spend for something worthwhile. Not the one to buy gadgets or branded clothed, I turned to spending some of my money on experience.
This is where you can picture me climbing watch towers without protective gears, going to Macau to bungee-jumped off its tower, and visiting ziplining destinations all over the Philippines to look for that ultimate thrill. One of my favorites is the Plunge at the Danao Adventure Park in the island province of Bohol in the Philippines.
The plan was to continue jumping until I ran out of reasons why I should jump. I was fearless and to a certain point, reckless in my six-year affair with ropes, harnesses, and platforms.
And then… marriage and children happened. These two can potentially change life’s priorities.
I still want to jump. I haven’t even experience skydiving. But I’m not anymore the single, 20-something, who lives alone. I have a husband, three children, and a C-section scar that is healing quite well and that means taking all the necessary safety precautions before I go ahead and toss myself into a void.
The thing that most people don’t realize about us, adrenaline junkies, is that the rush does not begin when we jump off that platform. The euphoria starts on those crucial moments when we’re standing on the platform contemplating thinking we should scream or just remain quiet and admire the view from where we are. The plunge is the bridge that connects that exciting feeling we feel before the jump and that incredible feeling of satisfaction that overpowers the senses after all the harnesses has been taken off.
The plan is to do this again but… we go start from the basic: ziplining.
Well, not that bad.
I’ll order travel insurance to go.
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T30WC or The 30-minute Writing Challenge is a writing exercise born out of this blogger’s need to maintain a habit of writing. Subjects of each writing challenge is just about anything but should ONLY be written within 30 minutes.
