Hang Loose !!!

I arrived to Honolulu, Hawaii, in March of 2009, and for 3 weeks I did all the common things most tourists do: visit different beaches, surf “gigantic” waves, swim with various kinds of fish (experience in wish I almost drawn, due to my perfectly normal fear of a shoal attack). And, even though I was having a great time doing all this activities, I wanted something more extreme, and even more dangerous than a fish “gang” assault. Hence, when a member of my group, suggested we went skydiving, I didn’t think it twice to accept his offer.
1 day, 20 km, and 300 dollars latter, me and my friends were listening to the sky diving instructor, and waiting for the plane to take us somewhere over the rainbow. Near 2 pm, the 8 of us (4 tourists and their respective instructor partners) boarded the plane, and started the thrilling journey.
As a joke of destiny, I got seated in the final row of the plane, and thus, would be the last person abandoning the ship; late I understood that witnessing the fading of my innocent companions, would only undermine my otherwise firm determination. One at a time, the seats in front of me were getting empty, and before I even noticed I was standing on a step that loomed timidly out of the plane.
In mainland they say “take it easy”; in Hawaii we say “Hang loose”…
Reassuring expression,
Confusing slang,
The promise of a better outcome,
Than the one we have in mind.
It was somehow ironic for me (and confusing for my brain) when the sky diving instructor told me, over the noise of the wind, to: “hang loose, and jump out of the plane”. Happily for my collapsing brain, when the instructor finally managed to replace the metallic floor under my feet, for the distant image of a magic island (using a gentle flying kick), everything in my being turned off. The world was still, time did not exist, and for an infinite hundredth of a second I was an accelerating picture.
I had even forgotten to breathe, and when I gained awareness of that simple fact, the world started to move again, rushing towards me with an increasing speed as I filled my lungs with the purest air. I spent the remaining 59.99 seconds of the 12 thousand-feet fall, expelling that renewing breath as an unlistenable scream.
After the parachute opened, for my heart´s relief, the landing was calm and almost boring; and as I approached the ground, dangling like a tired puppet, I realized that it would be a long time before I did something as fantastic as the previous jump.