Happy Birthday to Me!

With a roar of “OH MY GAWD!” that would have impressed the Spartans of 300, I leaned forward and began plummeting 150 feet towards the water. It was five days before my birthday, and because we were travelling almost the entirety of my birthday, we decided to celebrate beforehand. Out of a handful of options I was given, I chose bungee-jumping. The next morning we drove to Taupō Bungee, and my dad and I walked to the office; I was weighed in at about 55 KG, or roughly 120 pounds. I was given a fancy card on a lanyard that had my name and weight on it. As we watched other people jump I tried my hardest to swallow the lump in my throat, calm my machine-gun nerves, and to overcome my fear. That didn’t work at all, so I decided to use the often-employed Plan B: throw myself into it, and hope to goodness I don’t get hurt.

I walked along the cantilevered platform, extending 30 feet out, 150 feet above the Waikato River. I took off my shirt, because the bungee was supposed to dunk you in the water. I handed the lanyard to a guy at a little hut at the end of the platform, then I walked in and sat down where I was directed to. A man put a harness on me and began to attach heavy-duty ankle straps. I noticed that this man was (for some unknown reason) shaking almost as badly as I was. This did not help me calm down. He double-checked the straps, and then an obviously more experienced person came, and checked them again. Then they attached a 2-inch thick bungee cord to the straps. Two more people checked my harness, counting off each stress point as they went. After all these safety measures, I was a little bit more confident, and I wasn’t so worried about ending up the like the British tourist that had, only a few months ago, made international headlines by almost dying while bungee jumping off of a bridge in Africa.

I was told to walk over to a part of this hut that didn’t have a railing, and so I waddled over (remember, my ankles were attached by a six-inch strap). The experienced guy told me he was going to say “Three! Two! One! Bungee!” and then I was supposed to jump. I knew at this point there was no going back, and so when he said “BUNGEE!” I screamed to the heavens, and as I plummeted down I let the whole valley know just how damn terrified I was. As I got closer to the water, I put my hands in a diving position, and got neatly dunked up to my neck in the water. Because the bungee cord was elastic, I bounced up about half as high as I had fallen. On the way up, and the inevitable way back down, I was laughing like a maniac. This was, by far, the most memorable, and exciting birthday present I had ever had, as well as an amazing exercise in releasing fear.

[late post, my birthday is January 30th]