By Maggie Downs
The Cincinnati Enquirer
'Are you ready to skydive?!?!?" my instructor bellowed.
Heart pounding. Breath shallow. Stomach quaking. Somehow I gathered the courage to nod my head yes.
My first two jumps - done two weeks ago with a guy named Toby strapped to my back - were scary. So scary, I brought along an extra pair of panties just in case.
But last weekend was hardcore. It was a relatively solo leap through the sky, (two people jumped next to me, in case I went mad crazy), which is even more frightening.
I took a big step out of the door, arched my back and fell, belly-down, accelerating faster than a Porsche. I don't remember seeing land or sky - or even the sunset I was plummeting past. My eyes were fairly frozen to the altimeter on my left hand as I waited to pull my parachute.
With each shallow breath, I wondered, "What the *@$&!? Why the *@$& am I doing this to myself?"
The truth is, it's fun. It's a completely empowering activity. It's both crazy and peaceful - like a raging Red Bull and saccharine Hallmark commercial rolled into one. And it's a high that's perfectly legal.
"When you're free-falling, it's like a wind tunnel," said Amy Brock, 31, of Mount Lookout. "But as soon as the cord pulled, there's this awesome, quiet, floaty feeling.
"It's fun as hell."
More Tristate young people are skydiving than ever before, and they're all searching for something different.
It was mostly a lack of long-term responsibility that drove Mark Cohen, 34, of Mason, to jump.
"(It's) overcoming fears. Thrill-seeking," he said. "Seeing the world from a perspective that I never had before."
Some crazy chicas are after adventure.
"I'm not really afraid of anything," said Jennifer Blauvelt, 21, of Bridgetown. "I wanted to see if it would scare me."
Others have simply done everything else.
"It was the last thing on my list of things to do," said Kye Pickens, 28, of Bellevue. "Man, I need to make a new list."
The only thing better than the actual jump is how quickly people bond when they think they're about to die.
"To begin with, people are going for a rush," said Toby Ladd of Williamsburg, Ind., an instructor at Skydive Wayne County in Richmond, Ind. "But the rush doesn't go away - it sticks around because we all support and encourage each other here. And there's always a party afterward."
Skydiving develops a great community. A kinship. A family - albeit a somewhat dysfunctional one, whose members thrive on soaring through blue skies at terminal velocity.
(Added bonus: The female-male ratio is pretty fabulous - less than 20 percent of skydivers are women. The guys, who are all hot as Georgia asphalt, seem to think any woman who drops from the sky is amazing. And they're right.)
After returning to solid ground, the skydiving community is welcoming.
There's a lot of hugging. Screaming. Funny little dances. Then everyone tells you how much you rock.
In my case, after landing on the asphalt, there was also a shout of, "Hey, rookie! Get off the runway."
The whole process is addictive.
I've hit the point where I need a 12-step program. I'm all Ms. Jumpy McAdrenaline. My conversations now are like, "Blah blah skydiving skydiving skydiving blabbety blah." I've become a skydiving pimp, pressuring everyone to have the thrill of a lifetime with me.
Best of all, I've discovered people with similar goals - to do this wild, exhilarating thing together as often as possible.
"It's an amazing thing," Toby said. "You come in to jump, but you leave with a new group of friends."
It just goes to show the heights that some of us will go to meet some fun people.
About 14,000 feet.
E-mail mdowns@enquirer.com
Watch video of Maggie's first skydive at WCPO.com
