Takin' the Plunge

On Friday we took a boat ride on the Sunesta to do some exploring. While we were our enjoying the gorgeousness of the lake, we found a good spot to do some swimming...ie: cliff jumping. The water was a little chilly, but all the boys (Billy, Austin, Derek, Brayden, and even Carsen) jumped out of the boat and swam over to do some climbing and then some jumping.

Carsen by far was the smallest (and youngest), but he seemed to be quite brave. I, of course, was already in quazi-panic attack mode with just the cliff jumping in general...until my sweet little Carsen followed the big boys up the cliff and wanted to jump. Luckily, he was slightly frightened and walked to a lower portion of the cliff (a much better place to jump for someone his size) and jumped until his heart was content.


The older boys jumped a bunch and Buv decided he should try it too. Well...this just about sent me into full panic attack mode...until he called me a wuss or said I didn't have the guts to do it...

I'm not OVERLY competitive, but my fear of heights, jumping, rappelling, rocks, etc is something that I fear for good reason (read back to the story of how my husband was killed), but I hate that I fear those things. I HATE it!! I have tried and tried to get past it, but it's probably my biggest struggle in regards to Kyle's death. I used to love to climb and rappel and would encourage other frightening behaviors, but I just haven't been able to get past my anxiety of it all happening again.
Well folks, Sydney and I looked at each other in the boat and decided today was the day that we weren't afraid any more....I mean, Billy was doing it...so how scary could it be??

Let me tell you how scary it was...VERY scary. I stood on top of that cliff, about 20 feet above the water that was about 50+ feet deep, for about 20 minutes. I cried, I talked to myself, I shook (literally), I listened to Buv tell me he would never let me get hurt...

Finally, Sydney and I agreed to go at the same time. But some how, she jumped and I was still up there...so then Mike took my hand and we agreed to go together on a count of three...but I want to plug my nose, so I took my hand back...and somehow on the count of three, he jumped and I was still on top. That's when the tears came...I was truly scared to death, but still determined not to let Kyle's accident ruin my life.

Buv was so sweet and promised he'd be there when I got down...I kept attempting to jump...I just couldn't do it.

Then people from another boat climbed up to jump...which didn't help any. I already had all the boys chanting my name and telling me it was easy and etc....I also had Carsen telling me how much he loved me and that it would be okay. I'm not sure if that helped or hurt...

To end the suspense, I did jump. As i stood there, shaking with fear, I decided that if I was ever going to truly move-on and be able to "jump" with Buv...I had better jump off that friggin' rock and land in the water where the man I love was waiting patiently.

I made it. It didn't hurt. In fact it was pretty easy...