blue hole

I was reading one of Nomadicus' blog entries, the one where he jumped into the river and landed on a snake ... (poor Nomadicus) and it reminded me of the time I jumped into blue hole. I was a very unwilling jumper. It was not one of my proudest moments... Blue Hole is in Texas, around where I went to high school. It was a place we went to swim sometimes.

One day an old friend showed up on our doorstep. Todd. A friend I went to elementary school with in upstate New York. We kept in touch through letters, and every now and then he'd call in the middle of the night (I never did figure that one out, the timing, just listened like a good friend does...) and then a few times he'd just show up. One thing I remember from elementary school was walking home together and him telling me he hoped to be reincarnated as a frog in his next life. I never could tell if he was joking or not. I just kept thinking, man, that's a short life-span. He did like frogs though...

Anyway... so it was nice to talk and catch up on things. He slept on the couch for a night or so. Said the chiming clock kept waking him up every hour. One of my brothers was trying to help me out I guess, in the entertainment department, so he thought of us all going to blue hole to jump off the cliff they have there. I had never done that, the cliff jumping part.

I'm usually good to go, like to do outdoors stuff, but I do have some sense, so I was willing but was going to assess the situation as we went along. (i.e. make sure it wasn't too scary for me before I committed.)

So before I know it we are scrambling up the rocky path to the top of this cliff. Now in my mind I know people have jumped off this lots before, and I'd never heard of anyone dying... That's what I kept telling myself as I climbed up and up.

Then we're there at the top, cautiously looking over the ledge into the water (way down there), and I'm thinking no way, I'm not going to do this, see you later guys. (I'll admit, I was hoping at least one would follow me, help me back down if I needed it...)

In a matter of moments I realized there were a few problems, and I didn't know what to do... My brother jumped off. Then Todd jumped off. And there I was all by my lonesome up there at the top. (At least they're alive, the rational part of my mind was subconsciously noting.)

Well, I turned to head back down the path and realized 2 things. 1) going back down looked a lot tougher than coming up did (did I mention bare feet and rocky path?) and 2) darn it, there were a group of unknown boys heading up to jump. Ugh.

It was an awful feeling. That jump was an insane way down, off a rocky ledge. You have to run before you jump, just to make sure you clear the ledge. Plus it looked a little slick from the drippy people who came back for more insanity. But I wasn't going to stand there while a group of boys stood behind me waiting for their turn.

This was all happening so fast. And Todd was swimming down below saying come on. So I did it. I hated every minute of it. But I jumped before any of those boys came all the way up. And I screamed the whole way down.

It was a relief to hit the water and realize everything still worked perfectly fine.

Anyway, that's my jumping story. Just thinking of it makes my tummy hurt. It was nice to be able to brag about it afterward a few times I admit. But I didn't plan on getting myself into another situation like that again. I wish I knew how many feet down that was, but I don't...