Check Your Surroundings
By: Hanan Berger
ERIC
Some say I'm delirious. Some say I'm a sociopath. Some say I'm just plain old crazy. To a certain degree they are all correct. They've told me to go to a psychiatrist, but I thought, why does it matter if I have decided the date I want to die? I decided that I would kill myself, on January 1st, 2018 and I gave myself one year to do it. My plan from the beginning was to complete a bucket list but the catch was that I have my own deadline before I "kick the bucket". I will do so with a very classic method, a gun, but I figured I would give myself an extra challenge. If I complete my list I could make it quick and painless but if I don't, well, you get the point.
I have my list written out on a sheet of paper that I keep in my house and I cross off each item I do as I do it, the way one normally would with a shopping list and the day that I start my story I went skydiving. I think it's a pretty normal thing to do.
I got an Uber up to the place, I signed the waiver (I find it annoying, but I sign it anyway because they wouldn't let me do go unless I did). I got up to the plane and I sat down with my backup parachute on my chest and when I turn to my right I see a girl about my age, who seemed vaguely familiar, with her instructor, and when I turned to the left and I saw my instructor. The plane was not too big, so we got up into the air quick. Soon we hooked onto our instructors because apparently we can't be trusted to pull our own chute. Then we got the green light. We got up and opened the door and the wind rushed out of the plain and my ears popped, then the girl jumps, then me. The entire time the air was rushing past us and we saw the ground slowly coming towards us then the girl starts freaking out. While on the plane we went over what we would do if this happened and so the instructor did what he said he would and he pulled her cord early to release the parachute. Their parachute opened and as the air caught the chute it seemed as if they shot up into the air leaving just the two of us. After a few seconds he motioned for me to pull my chute because his must have failed and I had the best reach to mine. I then had the realization that almost everything I had on my bucket list could kill me. Today I'm skydiving, tomorrow I'm bungee jumping, the day after I'm going on a hike that has killed many people prior. I realized that everything that I wanted to do is just a mental preparation for next New Year's and I just realized that I'm looking forward to it more than I thought I would.
At this point my instructor waswas reaching around me to pull my chute and I figured I'd give him the satisfaction of 'saving a life', so I didn't stop him. We glided down for another three minutes or so before touching the ground, then we waited for the other girl to land. Once she did, we all started heading back to the pick-up vehicle and the instructor turned to me,
"What the hell were you thinking, making me pull the chute?"
"Did I?" I asked trying to push off the question, I really didn't know what to answer to that and frankly, didn't really care.
"Yeah, we could have gotten seriously injured, you should be glad we didn't." He sounded like he was really starting to get annoyed.
"I guess that's a good thing." Now I was just laughing to myself because this guy really had no idea who he was talking to.
We ended up getting picked up buy a van and it brought us back to the main base. We got back, and I was about to leave when the girl came up to me.
"Hey, my friend can't pick me up and I can't get an uber would be able to give me a ride?"
"Where are you headed?"
"I live in Secaucus, are you headed towards there?"
"Yeah, you could use my Uber."
