Two months into my senior year of high school I turned 18. I celebrated with my close group of friends. My friends and I spent much time discussing the newfound freedom that we received on that momentous occasion. Voting, the purchase of cigarettes (even though none of us smoked), and the legal viewing of porn (which was heavily discussed). Then someone mentioned skydiving. We pondered that for a while. It sounded like a good idea to us, but we wanted to do it as a group, and not all of us were 18. We decided to wait until two weeks after graduation. We would all be 18, and it would be a great way to end our high school careers. Of course, the date was over 8 months away, and when something is that far away you assume that it will never happen so you agree.

Time passed and the event passed out of thought. The year went on as usual. Then, about two weeks before graduation, one of the friends finally remembered. He brought it up at a dinner a couple of nights later. We all agreed to do it (we weren�t going to back down at this point), and we looked into arrangements. We kept it secret from our parents because even thought they couldn�t stop us from skydiving, they could still stop giving us money, food and a place to live. We made our reservations, and put down our deposit, there was no turning back.

We drove out to the airfield. It was the second Friday in June. It also happened to be the 13th. Yes, we were going to jump out of a plane from 13,500 feet and (hopefully) live, and we were going to do this on Friday the 13th. It was the only day that we could have jumped. I had just gotten in town from a short vacation two days earlier, and another friend was leaving the next day for a month and a half of summer school. There was no other day. We told luck to fuck off, and decided to jump out of a plane.

I did the pansy tandem jump, where you have a jump master attached to you the whole time. We went through about three hours of �training� before the jump. The �training� basically involved watching a 20 minute video, and then hanging around in the prep room while jump masters cracked jokes about the dangers of skydiving. The time finally came for us to go. We couldn�t all go at once because there weren�t enough jump masters for each one of us to have one strapped to our backs so we went two at a time (there were six of us). I was chosen to go first. My pulse raced, heart jumped up into my throat, and my stomach sank, and I wasn�t even in the plane yet.

The plane ride was by far the worst part. There is enough time to think about everything that can go wrong. From the minor things, like �what if I land wrong and break my ankle or my wrist?� to the major things, like �what if the parachute fails (and the reserve one too), or the straps that connect me to the jump master break, and I die?�. It didn�t get any better. Two experienced skydivers were jumping ahead of me, and they did what is called a hop n� pop. Basically, they had just purchased new parachutes and they wanted to test them. Instead of jumping at 13,500 feet and free-falling for almost a minute, they just jumped at the normal altitude for opening and opened their �chutes immediately after clearing the plane. I relate all that to you because as I�m sitting in the plane these two guys jump out of it. They just disappear. Poof, they are gone. That is scary. Two guys were just in the plane and in the blink of an eye, they were gone. I really started to feel nervous then. So we finally get to 13,500 feet. The red light comes on and my jump master and I make our way to the door. We sit at the edge, with our feet dangling over the side. There is nothing between me and the ground. The light goes green. We rock backwards once, and then go.

For those of you that have never skydived, it is something that you have to do once before you die. It is the greatest rush you will ever feel. It was the funnest 5 and a half minutes of my life. Free-fall is indescribable, and I�m not even going to try. I�ll just leave it at it is truly as close to flying as you will ever get. There is no falling sensation until well after the parachute is open. It is surreal and exhilarating all at the same time.

We all survived without injury. We all had a great time. The next day, one of us left for St. Louis, a few weeks after one left for Austin, a few weeks later Spain, then Houston, then North Carolina, and then I left for Alabama. Friday, June 13th was the last day that we were together, and it was a hell of a way to go out.

I never thought that's what would happen to breasts going at 120 MPH.

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