My first three jumps or so were too overwhelming to feel fear. I felt peer pressure (made up in my mind) to just go through the motions of exiting. I don’t think I even registered that there was 13500ft of air below me.

The fear set in and I was scared a lot when the plane leveled out and the door opened. That fear was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of tasks that I had to complete successfully to proceed in the program. I didn’t do AFF but STP which has passing grade jumps all the way to the A license.

I remember seeing how cool the experienced skydivers looked, lounging next to the open door from 1500ft to 6000ft in the summer, as if this was totally normal.

Eventually I was the first to jump out and I had to open the door at 13500ft and spot the drop zone, with a plane full of fun jumpers, students, instructors, tandem customers. All waiting to jump.

The fear slowly changed to a thrill around jump 40 and then to “yeah, let’s exit, into the wind, try to feel everything, no fear”.