Sometimes, life is pretty boring. The routine of everyday life grinds away at one’s physique and mind, depressing those whose childhood dreams of grandeur and adventure are no longer even shadows on the horizon. The aspiring astronaut is now nothing more than a dock worker, the princess a bank clerk, and the police officer a café manager. Not always amazing and exciting, true, but more often than not, life is a comfortable lull like floating on a raft down a lazy river. I had been working and going to school for years on end—a boring eternity it seemed—never breaking routine, never missing a day, never waking up with excitement in my stomach, or a break in schedule to look forward to. But the rapids were ahead.
BAM! All of the sudden, with no warning, I found myself falling out of a plane. The door opened, the noise of the wind rushing by suddenly grew louder and intense, and the strong sturdy ground to which I had become accustomed was now but a pattern of different colored patches like the quilt on my mother’s bed. Very far away. The first few seconds of the fall were wild, twirling, whirling, spinning hours as I saw the ground seemingly not come rushing at me from 10,000 feet away, then the horizon, then the plane silhouetted against a bright blue sky, then the ground then the sky, then the ground. As my fall stabilized and I got my bearings, I realized that I should probably start enjoying myself. Then, a kind of peace. Oh, I was still moving, and very quickly at that, but as I reached terminal velocity, the nearly 60 meters a second I was moving towards the ground, I felt no impact on my body, for we can only interpret a change in speed or direction. I was floating, weightless and carefree as the cold wind rushed by me and numbed my hands. A smile formed. The parachute opened.
But back to the routine I went; the work, the school, the drudgeries of life. For a few days, my life was enhanced as I told people of my experience, but the excitement was soon dissipated and drowned by those people who had not had an amazing experience to lift them out of their dull lives recently. I was soon quickly pulled back to the lazy river. But again, my life was about to change. Even having been skydiving, the biggest adrenaline rush I’ve ever had was with my two feet on solid ground, on a patchy grass pitch in Fullerton, California. A mere week earlier, my good friend and house mate, also a foreign exchange student from Switzerland had approached me.
“Matt,” he said, in his very thick Swiss-German accent, “let us go play Rugby.” I laughed and the words,
“I don’t know the first thing about Rugby.” formed in my mouth.
“Neither do I.” he said. So we joined the Santa Barbara City College Rugby team. I had been to two practices and was still completely unsure of the rules when game day arrived. The drive to Fullerton from Santa Barbara was a couple hours of traffic, stuck in a van with my teammates legs squished up against mine as we all tried to nap after the huge breakfast we had all downed at IHOP. We did a lap, then warmed up, and I took my place on the sidelines to watch, knowing full well that my lack of experience, knowledge, and skill would have me there until I proved myself. A few minutes in, the coach called my name.
“Alright Matt,” he said in his thick Aussie accent, “You’re going in at the next break of play.” I started to protest, unsure of myself, but he said, “The best way to learn is to do.” So I found myself on a field with 29 other men, most bigger than myself, holding a large, strangely shaped ball and running not knowing what the hell I was doing. The game progressed. Then, I saw him. He was on the other team and he had the ball. He was big, much bigger than myself—probably had 100 pounds on me, and it was 100 pounds of toned muscle, not blubbery fat. He was running straight at me. He wasn’t stopping. There are few things more frightening than seeing something much bigger and stronger than you are, coming at you full speed. Suddenly, everything became very bright. The noise of the crowd and the players around me disappeared. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. The animalistic part of my brain shouted “Flight!” but my will overcame. Fight! Feet planted. Arms Spread. Back lowered. Mouth biting on mouth guard. Legs coiled like a spring holding tension, ready to explode at any second. Closer he came. Now! Go! Legs pushed forward. I wrapped. I held. He kept going. Not tackled by me, no, but I slowed him down enough for three of my teammates to catch up and finish the job. Quick, get up! Back in position. Hold! Run! Tackle! Hold! Run! Tackle! I’ve been in love with Rugby ever since.
Funnily enough, another adrenaline rush comes from something that those who have not experienced it would not believe. It is not a physical feat, nor a dangerous act. Weeks of effort have been put into this day, this moment. Hours of fretting and strange looks on the bus as I hold the pieces of paper that have been highlighted over and over again. Now though, I hear the voices of the people in the other room hush as the lights dim. Instead of the drone of a hundred people, suddenly there are only two speaking clearly with each other. They speak. A laugh from the hushed people. More speaking. More laughing. There it is, my cue! I feel my legs pulling me onto the stage. Bright lights blind me as I glance into the audience and see only silhouettes of heads. My line, say it! It’s been practiced so many times and I say it. A laugh from the audience. My line, my partner’s lines, my lines. Oh shit! I don’t know my next line! What is it? It’s my turn to speak. The other actors look at me expectantly. WHAT IS IT? My mouth blurts it out; thankfully, correctly. I know I have something else to say after this, but I’m still not sure what it is! Again, my mouth blurts it. Muscle memory is an amazing thing. The scene continues, so surreal. I can feel myself doing things without thinking about them. This is acting. I’m someone else. The scene finishes. We leave the stage. We smile and share hugs, just thankful we didn’t screw up. Somehow, I’m in control again and I’m myself. Being on stage is like a possession, and finishing the scene is the exorcism. A tough battle that, when won, feels so freeing.
A break from every day routine to experience an intense flash of emotion is too important to pass up. It reminds us that life doesn’t have to be boring, and gives us something to look forward to as we drudge through our everyday lives. Even those who aren’t adrenaline junkies like me should still find the things to pull themselves out of the boringness that is everyday life so as to keep their sanity. While we spend the majority of our lives doing mundane things, we need something to keep us looking forward to so that we don’t get lost on the lazy river, feel our raft bump into the shore in shallow water, and let complacency overrun us as the water rushes over the sides.
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