The One with Not Jumping

I stand there frozen. My feet glued to the rock beneath me. I look out over the still pond, to the ascending mountain range beyond. The sky is blue with white cotton ball clouds, it is one of those days where you never want to go back inside. One of the last hot days of summer. Looking around, taking it all in, nothing seems to be wrong in the world. Besides for the fact that I can’t make myself jump.
I stand there tazed. My legs pumping, my hands shaking. I look down at the daunting water ten feet below and my stomach drops. I could puke any moment. If I was in the middle of the pond, looking up to the rock, it probably wouldn’t appear as nerve wrecking. But standing from the top, it feels like I am on a New York city sky scrapper, dangling off the rooftops edge.
I can’t do it. I don’t care if I jump or not. Do you care? Will it make me a better person if I do? I don’t think so.
It’s only jumping off a rock into a pond.
How much can that mean?
How hard can it be?
Why can’t I make myself do it?

For being a fairly adventurous person, from scaling high peaked mountains to open-faced rock walls, to moving without a plan and starting over in new states I know nothing about, when it comes to jumping off of something I can’t do it to save my life. I run in below freezing temperatures and in the blazing Florida heat, drive on ice slickened roads and talk to strangers. I don’t mind needles or the dentist or ingrown toenails I have to pull off myself. I’m not nervous around sharks or bears or jelly fish. Heights and plane rides, the alleys of India to the streets of Detroit. No problem at all.
But jumping is a different story.
My body shuts down and I can’t move.
I am shot with a dose of numbness.
I am brave. At least I think I am.
But when I can’t jump off of something it makes me feel weak; estranged from myself and uncomfortable with the limits of my own body and what it can usually be pushed to do.
Jumping is one thing it can’t do. Or am I just telling myself that?

It all comes down to the jumping bridge.
I picture it as a high bridge, all alone against the crystal Florida sky, that not too many people know about. As I walk towards it for the first time, I can hear people cheering and children screaming before I see it. I realize then it will not just be, my boyfriend Kevin and I there, alone, jumping off the bridge at our preferred pace. Instead we will have a crowd full of families waiting in line behind us, clapping us on, taking our picture from the top. We arrive at an old highway bridge that is crowded with lines of people on both sides. Coolers full of cheap bear and picnic baskets full of salty snacks dot the sides of the bridge. Towels hang over the bridge’s wall and one person brings a speaker that I would hate to get wet to supply some dubstep background music. The bridge stands over a thin canal that leads to the ocean, about thirty feet wide. Depending on what way the current is flowing determines the side of the bridge most people jump from. Today the current is flowing to the ocean, from the left to right hand side of the bridge; a line snakes along the left side.
“Let’s get in line,” Kevin says to me.
“Don’t you maybe want to wait a while, or go swim first?” I say, a little hesitant and now doubting my urge to jump. I haven’t even looked down yet.
“Well the whole point of jumping is to get in the water, so let’s just jump first. I’m sweating.” Kevin begins to walk towards the end of the line. I watch as teenage girls hold each other’s hands and jump in together, as middle-aged men do backflips off the bridge’s edge, and children no older than five straighten their tiny bodies into pencils and hop off the high wall. I am amazed at how fast they leap from the edge. On top of the three-foot-high wall, is about a 20-foot drop to the water below. I have never jumped from something this high before.
Deep down I know I will not jump today. Sometimes you just know.
But of course, I’m not going to tell my fairly new boyfriend, who I am trying to impress that.
“Okay, let’s do it,” I say strongly. I hated lying, but I hate jumping more.

I don’t jump from the jumping bridge that day or the next time Kevin and I go. Or the next time after that when I promise the third time will be the charm. Or the next time after that when we decide to float down the canal with two tubes tied together and a cooler of Mike’s Hards. Or the next time after that on the day I finish my first marathon and want nothing more than to jump into a body of water. The jumping bridge is the closest place and my body is on fire from 26 miles of Florida roadside heat, but I still can’t do it.
I never can make myself jump.
Not once.
It’s not that I don’t understand why. It is all mental. I am the one holding myself down on the bridge, not letting go of the wall, not allowing myself to fall. It’s not that I’m afraid of hitting the water or of what it feels like to fall, it’s that I simply can’t make myself jump. My legs don’t let me, my body says no. My mind goes haywire in thinking what the hell is wrong with me for not being able to do this, and it just ends with me standing on a bridge and not jumping off.
Always walking back to my car with another failed attempt under my belt.

I stand there frozen. My feet glued to the rock beneath me. Ivy freely swims in the pond below and all I want to do is join her. I can do this. I want to do this. Just do it Mal. Jump.
Natasha comes and stands beside me. She takes my hand.
“We can jump together,” She says.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. What if I still can’t do it?” I say shaking nervously.
“You will. Just look out. Don’t look down and don’t think about it. You can do this,” Natasha calmly says. “Whenever you are ready.”
I squeeze her hand. I boil up inside with fear and nausea. I don’t want to let her down or prove her wrong. This woman I have come to love and respect and has come to love and respect me, I don’t want to show her my one weakness.
I step to the edge of the rock and she follows my lead. I can’t feel my body as I look straight out. I don’t look down, I look up, and the clouds dissolve before me as we fall to meet the dark water. We crash into it, our hands still interlaced, and we finally free ourselves and make our way to the surface. Out of the water, Natasha looks at me and smiles, Ivy swims towards us and we form a triangle.
Laughter erupts between the three of us. Nobody says “Good Job” or “You did it,” because nobody has to. I float away on my back, gazing up at the cotton ball clouds, the rock we jumped from jutting up in the corner of my vision. It seems like nothing at all. A small amount of height compared to the overwhelming anxiety I felt before jumping in.
How quickly your perception can change when your perception has been changed.
How different something can look when you are standing below it than on top.
How one moment you are fearful and the next moment you are free.

There will always be cans and there will always be can’ts.
Hold on to both and acknowledge them. Write them down and work at them every day.
Know they can be changed just as quickly as they were formed and that nothing in this world is permanent.
If I was at the jumping bridge today perhaps I would jump.
Tomorrow, not even a chance.

So, jump when you can.  With all of your might.

It won’t hurt.   I promise.