Thursday 2 April 2015.
I stayed in a hotel down the road from Chatteris Airfield last night, and this morning I'm on my own.
This jump should have happened last September. A big group of us signed up together for charity. A friend mentioned it and I said yes straight away. Saying yes was easy. Then the day came, it was too windy, and nobody jumped. The group rebooked for a date I couldn't make. So here I am, six months later, doing it by myself.
A room full of strangers
I walk into the North London Parachute Centre and I don't know a single person. They take us into a little room with a TV and sit us down for a safety video. I've watched people jump out of planes on telly loads of times. Watching one when you know you're up next is a different thing altogether.
Then the jumpsuit goes on. Then I meet the man I'm going to be strapped to.
He's a stranger. He's done lots of jumps. I've done none. He's a nice guy and I like him, but what really matters is this: in about an hour I'm going to trust him with my life, and all I've got to go on is that he's done this lots of times before.
Somewhere in there my brain starts asking what happens if the chute doesn't open.
Up we go
The plane has no seats. We sit on the floor. I normally sit in these things and fly somewhere. I don't normally leap out of them. Why am I jumping out of a perfectly good aeroplane?
I'm not first. I watch the people ahead of me go out of the door, one after another, and every time someone drops, the nerves crank up another notch. It looks unreal.
Then it's me.
The edge
I'm sat on the edge with my legs dangling in the air. You know that moment on a roller coaster when you reach the top and you know the big drop is coming, with all the twists and loops after it? It's that, times a hundred. Excitement and fear at the same time, rushing through me like someone's just injected me with something. It all comes too fast to make sense of.
My instructor counts down. Three. Two.
I'm fairly sure he never says one. I think he just pushes.
Falling, then floating
The speed is incredible.
Then the parachute opens, and for a second it feels like we're shooting back up towards the plane. After that, everything stops. We're hanging there, hardly moving, with the fields spread out underneath us.
Then the ground gets close quickly, and we land almost exactly where we're meant to.
Why I still think about it
Eleven years on, that jump is still the best picture of change I've got.
When you first decide to do something, it all happens fast. That's the freefall. It's scary, but you can feel it working.
Then you settle in, and it slows right down. Some days it feels like you're going backwards. That's where most people give up. I wrote it down myself that same spring. I was working with a coach, and before one of our calls I listed what was going well. Then I added: "the growth still feels too slow."
It's also the bit where you've got the best view, if you can stop panicking long enough to look.
Your jump
For most people, the jump has nothing to do with an aeroplane.
It's the thing you're scared to do. The thing you keep saying you'll do. It might mean leaping into something new. It might mean leaping out of something you've outgrown.
Maybe you even set a date. Then life got in the way. The conditions weren't right, the date came and went, and you told yourself you'd rebook. Some day.
Here's the difference. With a skydive, the conditions really do decide. If the wind's too strong, they won't let you jump. Someone else makes that call.
Most of the other jumps in your life don't work like that. Nobody is checking the wind for you. Even when the conditions are wrong, the choice is still yours. You decide what happens next.
So commit. Pick the date and turn up, even if you have to turn up on your own. Take the leap. And when it all slows down and nothing seems to be moving, don't pull out. Look at the view and keep going.
The ground will come up to meet you.
