The Exhale in Between
Or, what jumping out of a plane reminded me of.
A few weeks ago I jumped out of a plane. Sure, I was strapped to a dude and had a backup to the backup of my parachute; but I still screamed “holy shiiiiiiiiiiiitt” as I fell out the door because well, I was jumping out of a plane.
Since then, I’ve been trying to write about it. No seriously, I’ve typed out at least a half dozen different introductions. I strung together a lot of pretty words talking about the wind contorting my face, the rush of adrenaline, the plummet to the ground, the thirtyish seconds that is an inexplicable twisting of exhilaration and fear. But all of that is obvious. And while it was incredible, it’s not what was impactful. It’s not what I wanted to tell you about.
What I want to tell you about is what happened after the free fall. The next moment after my chute was pulled and suddenly I was no longer falling because I was suspended in air. I want to tell you about it because it seemed to be the only moment in my life where everything was still. There was no soft whir of a fan, no spray of a shower head, no shallow rumble of my toothbrush — all sounds that you can find in what I would typically call out as my moments to myself. There was none of that because everything was quiet. It was just me and the world. (Oh, and that guy strapped to my back.)
I’m sure this sounds like the perfect set up to how I had an epiphany or some game changing aha moment (I hate that phrase, by the way) but that’s not what happened. What happened was that while I fell to the ground in slow motion, I thought about absolutely nothing. Not about my job and it’s current projects, not about what I needed to do later that day or what I should probably have been doing instead of skydiving. I didn’t think about how close or far I was to be able to demo my product or how I need to find funding or that upcoming meeting. I didn’t think about the overwhelming to do lists, the emails I needed to respond to, the approaching deadlines, the features for that MVP, how I needed to clean my apartment, how I forgot to say thank you earlier, how that one thing happened that was frustrating me, or about that other thing. I didn’t think about any of those things because I wasn’t thinking at all. It was a fifteen minute exhale from jumping out of a plane to finally touching the ground. There was no reflection, no preparation. There was just me and the world. In between one moment and another.
So often we are always breathing in: getting ready for the next thing on our calendars, the next task on our lists, the next iteration, the next launch, the next moment to participate in.. . that we forget about the exhale in between. The still moment between one inhale and another.
And that’s what I really wanted to tell you about.
