I am not a particularly adventurous person so I surprised even myself by going zip lining this weekend at Harbourfront in Toronto. Mind you, it was a short zip of about 15 seconds but still I was zipping through the air with the greatest of ease like the flying young man on the flying trapeze.
My sister Jane lives in a condo overlooking Harbourfront so for a day and a half I watched people zipping. Going zip lining was something that was on my bucket list but as with most things on my bucket list, I never expected to actually do it. Funny eh how one may even go to all the trouble of actually writing down what one wants to do -aka bucket list- without making any real effort to move forward, to take that step. It is as if one believes just by writing something down that it will somehow miraculously come to pass.
Anyway, after watching so many people zip lining, I gathered my courage and mentioned to my sister that this is something I would like to try. As I expected she said, ‘OK, let’s go right now’ and we did. I was unrealistically hoping that we could get on right away before my courage ebbed but our appointment time was for 6 pm-oh no, 4 hours away. The 4 hours passed with a sense of anticipation mixed with dread. At 5 pm, high winds arose and we could see that no one was zipping. Ah, saved by the bell I thought. However, when the winds died down, the people started zipping again.
At 6 pm we showed up, were harnessed up and we put our helmets on. If this was as safe as the young staff constantly pointed out to me, why would I need a helmet? Up the stairs we climbed. We had a great view of Harbourfront from the top of the scaffolding.
The attendant hooked me up to the line but even at that point, I knew that I would have to turn around and walk down the steps again if it was necessary that I walk to the edge of the platform and step off. Alas, I did not. I sat down in the air with the harness holding me up and somehow that was OK. The attendant let go and away I sailed. Even from the first second, it was fun. And I am saying that truthfully, not just with relief because it is over.
It struck me how this experience relates to anything we are afraid of, anything out of our comfort zone. It seems farfetched, seems perhaps impossible to step outside of what we are comfortable with but when we actually do it, actually take the steps (in this case literally steps) to do something that stretches us, it feels great afterwards. This comes not only from the satisfaction of having stepped through the discomfort but also because it may actually turn out to be fun. It even made me wonder why it was ever scary to begin with. I hope to remember this lesson when next I am inclined to step out of my comfort zone.
By the way, if anyone feels the need to go beyond their comfort zone by zip lining, it is free at Harbourfront Toronto through to the end of the Para Pan Am games on August 15th.
Nancy Sullivan CSJ