As I drove back up through Ohio, thinking to myself "gosh, I wonder if there's anything good about this state", I realized that there had to be something. I know, I know, my Michigan colors are showing, but seriously.... what the heck Ohio? Other than astronauts... what is there? Apparently there is also Ziplining, and it was incredible!
When I was in high school, my school did an adventure week to help the students bond with one another. We called it the hell hike. Mostly because we were all pretty darn spoiled. Among the activities included being outside, feeling cold, and at least one of my classmates attempting to convince me he was a vampire before getting into fisticuffs with the other students for being accused of having a crush on me. Ahh, high school.
The week also included a high ropes course that, upon arrival, promptly caused me to seize up with fear and wish I had a medical condition that would allow me to fake a flair up. See, I'm afraid of heights. The ropes course we were set to do was only about ten feet off the ground and yet, I was deeply and utterly convinced of my own mortality when I saw it.
You know that one annoying kid in a group who's afraid of everything and slows the whole group down? You know how that person inevitably gets put at the front of the line so that you, not only, have to hear them whining, you also get to do exactly nothing while they attempt to muster the courage to take a step the whole world has already taken with ease? Yeah. That was me. Back in eighth grade, I was the chick who really should've just gotten a doctor's note and called it a day.
Not to be confused with Dr. Yo-Yo Ma.
Flash forward ten years and at least five dozen questionable choices and there I stood at the Dayton YMCA waiting to be voluntarily ushered up to heights untold. Before we headed over to the course, I tried my hardest not to think about what we were all about to do. Given the boisterous and delightful personalities of our tour guides, that was actually quite manageable.
Perhaps, I thought, if I don't bask in my own fear for an hour before going up, it won't be so bad at all. I was right until it came to actually climbing up the tree. Once we were on the ladder, the old feelings from high school came rushing back. The adrenaline, the fear, an ever so slight twinge of vertigo. As I stood there, tightly grasping at the tree trunk, a voice in the back of my head started screaming to climb back down. Being in trees was, apparently, against the better instincts of my ancestors. Dear Lord. Zorbing was supposed to be the supreme challenge of this trip. Ziplining was booked mostly out of harmless jealousy over someone's amazing Jamaican honeymoon.
Truth is, I was entirely and completely back in high school. Ten years of accomplishments. Ten years of confidence. Ten years of ups, downs, ins, outs, victories and defeats were gone from my mind and all I could think was that I shouldn't have done this. I shouldn't have chosen to be that girl that slows everybody down yet again. And this - this wasn't a "let's walk a tightrope and then climb down" little pansy course like the one I barely made it through before. This was the World Series to my Little League. Welcome to the show, kids.
I made one, singular decision differently than I did in high school though. As I walked up for my turn and I was asked by our guide how I felt and if I was ready... I said no. No, I'm not ready. The strangest thing for me is that in that moment I suddenly became 25 again. I realized that I wasn't surrounded by judgmental teenagers and that my fear didn't ruin their experience. I realized that my challenge that day was against myself. Can I do this thing when I just barely made it through the pre-school playset version of a ropes course ten years ago? The only way I was going to was to admit that I was afraid. So I did.
With a little half-smile that told me he'd gotten that reaction before, the guide launched into a detailed explanation of the safety system. "Would it help you to know that that rope holds 29,000 lbs and that one holds 19,000 lbs and that one holds 6,000 lbs and that if we put this entire group in a VW bus and pushed the bus down the line, the ropes would be able to hold it?" Yea, actually. As silly as it was and as irrational as my fear was, knowing how much those ropes could hold was just the push I needed to make myself step off that first platform.
Not pictured: chronic wimpitis.
Don't get me wrong; I was still scared. As I flew through the air, I was too afraid to scream. My whole body was tense. I didn't turn my head and experience the scenery at all. But when I landed, I felt so freaking proud of myself there aren't even words to describe it. I smiled and I heard myself making conversation, but my mind was going on a thousand miles a second. I felt like I could do anything.
While there was some residual fear, in truth I found the rest of the course amazingly fun. As the lines got steeper and longer, I found myself actually excited to do the line I thought I'd have to bow out of at the beginning. It was at least 1000ft long and it spanned a gorge. In the middle, we were 180 feet in the air. That's 18x more awesome than the course that bested me in Connecticut. And I finished it.
As I think back over this year, there is only one thing where finishing was as much in question as with this day and that's the canoe trip. That was out of endurance and stamina though -- this was out of fear. I don't think. No, scratch that. I know that at the beginning of the year I would not have been able to go through with this course. I'd have turned around, climbed back down and felt miserable about it. I knew this project would make me more adventurous (what with every day being an adventure - its hard not to be). I knew it would make me harder working (what with having to balance the project with normal life). On some level, I even knew it would make me a happier, more confident person. I never imagined it would make me braver.
Hooray- ziplining is awesome! I guess there is something good in Ohio.
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