Pursue the Rush

On a bright and warm February day just outside San José, Costa Rica, I jumped off a bridge about one hundred feet tall. For the first time in my life, a familiar depth of water wasn’t waiting just below, but rather few unwelcoming-looking boulders and a few inches of agua dulce. A large rubber band comprised of a whole lot of little rubber bands tied together was my only means of avoiding a quite unpleasant end.
The ticos facilitating my bungee experience told me not to look down. I looked down.
The experience was completely novel, exhilarating, and just the perfect mix of calculated recklessness. But before I could enjoy it, my brain had to conquer my body’s basest instincts. I remember all the ways I rationalized the experience to myself. I told myself I had already paid for it, I told myself I would regret it if I chickened out (but let’s be real, there was no chance of that happening), I told myself I just had to give a slightly monumental effort to start, and then the rest would be easy. I was right. As I allowed myself to succumb entirely to gravity, I relished the feeling of complete and suspended weightlessness. My only conscious thought during the free-fall? “Adrenaline is the ultimate high. What’s going to be my next fix?” As the bungee instructors lowered a cord to pull me up, I looked down and all around. I was involuntarily treated to a 360-degree panorama and I noticed that I saw things differently. My vision was wider and sharper. In some inexplicable way, the world seemed more conquer-able.
I will never forget that moment. That moment in which I vowed to myself to never stop pursuing the Rush. I crave the Rush. The Rush that can only come from achieving grand feats in beautiful places.
The best thing about the Rush is that it can manifest itself in different ways, suitable to any and every situation. It can be as simple as enjoying a surprise encounter or falling in love with a new foreign food, and can escalate all the way to a more adrenaline-infused experience. My first Big Rush was bungee jumping in Costa Rica, my most recent Big Rush occurred while traipsing through Oakland, California at midnight on a Tuesday; I was trying to navigate my way to the cheapest hotel while avoiding the rumored imminent death that will surely come to any white girl that ventures into one of America’s most dangerous cities after nightfall. I wonder what my next Rush will be.