“Maybe, the plane was on mute”, I thought.

I knew it’s coming… so I held tight onto my seats and closed my eyes. I had been hearing this furious sound every 5 seconds for the longest time now. After a while, I burst out in tears.

I snapped back to reality and that was when I realized that the plane was not really on mute. It’s just that someone’s voice kept playing in my ears, it couldn’t be stopped. I felt so bad that the plane was not really on mute; that what I kept on hearing was the sound of my heart breaking which was too deafening it was louder than the plane engine.

D-A-B-D-A (Denial-Anger-Bargaining-Depression-Acceptance)
1, 2, 3 days. Days became weeks and weeks became months. I cannot remember how long but every second became tedious; I was bleeding, piercing, and grasping for every breath. Waking up every day had been a challenge…

That time, having to live another day was like another day of dying.

“Move on, move on din ‘pag may time…” (“Move on.”)
I had heard this in different languages, in different forms… from different people. Sadly, I felt like everyone left me. Exaggerated as it may seem, but, that time, I felt like the whole universe conspired to hurt me, to betray me, to leave me…

I died.
I thought I died.

It was tiring but I lived my life in that routine – wake up, breathe, cry, sleep. It was not working so I tried another routine – breathe, cry, sleep, HIDE. I liked the latter more that I think I enjoyed it too much that even I, can see myself no more… I cried.

I’d been lost for months now; for someone who hid herself in the four corners of her room, I stopped asking. An hour and a half flight, two-hour road trip, and a few more steps, the next thing I knew, I was in the middle of a forest in Danao.

I stared at the tarpaulin hanging near the reception and got intrigued with The Plunge; they say it’s the highest canyon swing in the world. I looked at the platform where it is being done; it is actually mounted over a 200-meter-high and 300-meter-wide gorge. It is where a person would have a 45-second-free-fall before being launched on a pendulum swing. Seems like a death-defying and heart-pumping stunt, right? An extreme adventure that you won’t ever like to try…

But I told myself, “I wouldn’t care if I would die here, I’d died for a long time now.” Examining how high it is, I whispered, “If I would fall here, I want to know if that fall would be more painful than my last fall. I want to feel it.”

While waiting for my turn, I was thinking what I will be shouting during The Plunge. I thought of saying a dozen or maybe a hundred I love You’s hoping that it would be enough to take away all the love I have in me. Another plan was to curse and say all the bad words that I could say; maybe by that it would take away all the pain. I decided not to do the latter…

Alas! The long wait was over.

Since I wanted to feel the fall badly, I chose to do it “The Head-First Style.”

Everything went so fast. Actually, it was just a less-than-a-minute-drop but have you had any experience wherein things go in slow-motion? That’s what I felt. It was too fast but the feeling was too surreal; I couldn’t explain.

Woohoo! I survived the Plunge!

Until now, I keep on chasing places. This time, not because I am picking up the broken pieces of me but because somewhere along the way, I discovered that this is where I am happy at – traveling the Philippines, watching the people, accepting the diversity, and last but definitely not the least, LOVING THE NEW ME. 🙂