In six months, Gwen Johnston turns thirty, and when she does, she vows she'll have her life together. She'll no longer be jumping from one job to another, from one relationship to the next. A new, more mature, Gwen will have emerged. She's giving he...
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Beside me, Esther is practically giddy. At seventy-two, she might be an older version of me. We've been strapped into the harness attached to the thick silver cable above, and we're waiting to be launched into the abyss. Her husband doesn't like heights, and when she found out I'd do this with her, she talked my ear off the entire way to the ticket desk. She's a ziplining pro.
"You'll have to come back in the summer," she says. "That's the only time you can ride the Sasquatch."
Fitting that they'd name that zipline course after a mythical beast. The fog is thick around us, and while the guy who strapped us in said it would clear down the line, it's exciting to be released into something I can't see. Anything could await us beyond the fog. Paige would be having an absolute fit at the unknown, I'm sure, but I love that I have no idea what's in store for me.
"At what point did you feel grown up?" I ask Esther.
"Grown up? Psh." She flicks her hand. "Sometimes I look in the mirror and I startle myself. Who is that old woman in my reflection? You almost forget that how you feel on the inside isn't matched by the outside. I don't feel old, but I sure as shit look it." She chuckles.
I should probably tell her she doesn't look old, but she really does. Laugh lines and wrinkles everywhere, and it's clear her chin length blonde hair is of the bottle variety. But her energy isn't old. It's infectious, the kind of person I hope I am when I'm older. Brilliantly, unwaveringly, alive.
"I guess I'm just struggling," I say. "I turn thirty in a little less than six months, and what I want for myself seems to be different than what people want for me."
"What do you want for yourself?" Esther asks as the guy in charge double checks all our connections.
"It would be a lot easier if I could answer that with any sort of certainty." I give her a wide smile. "I just know that I don't want what they want."
"To discovery," she says, and she raises her eyebrows. "You never know what's just beyond the fog."
Then without warning, our brake releases, and we're zooming down the cable.
At first the fog is so dense that I'm certain the guy at the top was wrong; we're not going to see anything. Then we come out of the mist in a rush, and the view opens up to something incredible. Mountains flank us on either side, still capped with snow, and there's a chill in the air that makes me wish I'd worn my winter jacket after all. Early May is surprisingly cold when you're up this high.
Higher than I expected, but if I'd thought about it, I'd have realized the ride up the mountain and then the number of stairs to reach the launching point had to make the distance between our bodies and the ground substantial. It's the kind of height that should inspire anxiousness, and I'm sure it would in my sister. That's not how I feel though as we sail through the cool air.
