Just Jump!

Growing up, this has been something which time after time has been shoved in my face, a truth which has helped me on many occasions. As a little girl, I was quite nervous of everything ranging from heights to deep natural bodies of water to driving in cars. Driving along cliffs (as well as any other sort of movement along them) still makes me incredibly nervous and to this day, the only form of locomotion I fully trust is that of my own two feet. In truth, I fear that if it was not for hiking I would not even trust these and if modern medical technology was not what it was when I was born, I would not of ever set foot to a trail. I was born an anxious little thing with feet that if they had continued to grow the way they were, would of crippled me forever. Thus; my middle name - Pauline, given to me after my great grandmother who had the same lameness at birth as me, but whose mobility fault was never corrected. The shocking thing about this is that all it took to fix my legs were simple casts and in truth, I did not even know that I was born lame until I was around five years old.

To the concept of jumping though; I have always been an anxious person and over the years, from my father dragging me across Yukness Ledge in Lake O'Hara (Yoho National Park) to leaping off of diving boards and job applications, I have learned that sometimes all you need is a leap of faith. Most of the time, I find that the expected burn that I was so terrified about is not so terrible as I made it out to be. So in short, sometimes you just have to jump! The following is written from memory.

I am a nervous person. On this day of May 19th 2010, I walked along Brooksbank Avenue towards the first perspective job place and I stalled a bit, nervously wondering what would happen when I entered the first establishment. I'm always nervous going into job places to hand in resumes, but the truth is, is that nobody really cares there that you are handing anything in. Usually the people are nice. So I did, reflecting over this as I went about my rounds, hoping dearly for a job, then finishing up with an application at Blockbuster. It had started to sprinkle before I went in, but I was not concerned, thinking that after I was done this final job application I could go home and rest out the remainder of the day. I had done well. Stepping back out approximately a half hour later, I was horrified at the sight of a classic Vancouver torrential downpour. Horror was my reaction because firstly, I was wearing nothing but shorts and a t-shirt with no outer layer for protection and secondly, because I had no money for bus fare.

I was stranded. With a cool wind blowing across me, I settled down under Blockbuster's eaves to call my parents so as to kill some time, hoping to walk home in clearer weather. Yet if there is one thing to be said about Vancouver, it is that waiting out a rainstorm is a losing battle. They don't call this place the 'Wet Coast' for nothing. Rain is as normal as sunshine here, in a way that is very different from my semi-desert homeland of the Okanagan.

So I stood there for a another good half hour, contemplating the very wet silver bullets flying down from the sky, shattering onto the parking lot and turning it to lake. I did not want to walk home in this; I cursed myself for my idiocy of forgetting the doctrine of BE PREPARED that had been drilled into my skull since my days as a Cub. Earlier I had looked outside and seen only cloud scudded sunshine, then I had glanced at my red coat and left it behind. Idiot! Often I find myself cursing myself for failing to listen to my own intuition, that little voice that quietly whispers to me "you're going to need that later."

Many, many times in my life I have encountered situations where I have balked. I'll admit that I am anxious and make mountains out of molehills. In a past life I was surely a horse and the worst kind of one - the kind that no matter how many times it sees its own shadow, it still bolts. It still cries out in terror and bucks. I wasn't afraid of the rainstorm, but I was afraid of the cold combined with the damp that could give me hypothermia and I was afraid of my precious sketchbook getting wet. But I was also hungry and I had the distinct need to pee, so after a few minutes of grudging consideration, the shortness of my attention span eventually won out and I sprang out from under the eaves of the building into the lot.

The rain was warm, feeling like the best kind of shower, like what Okanagan Lake feels like on a hot day. Wonderfully wet; welcome. It wasn't freezing; it was quite pleasant and I actually found myself enjoying it, though I was soaked within five minutes of leaving Blockbuster. I did not actually feel cold until I had been resting at home in dry safety for over ten minutes, forcing my stiffened fingers through the writing of a cover letter.

So of course, the moral of the story is the same as usual - sometimes you just have to jump. Sometimes, you have to pad to the end of the rickety teeter and stand on the edge, then lean over the edge until you have no choice but to leap out into the unknown. Sometimes you have to do stuff like this and trick your own mind, to give yourself no choice. Usually, when you jump you'll discover that the water is actually warm and not nearly as bad as you imagined. In fact, the water is wonderful. Water can be good.

Just jump.