My heart is pounding faster than it ever has before.

As I watch my friends jump before me with their own instructors, I feel more than a little queasy. I don’t fully realize what I’m doing — until I actually jump out of the plane.

I scream the entire way down — all 10,000 feet — which you can tell from the horrified look on my face in the photos and video.

My tandem partner, Vladmir, reassured me several times on the plane, and once in mid-air, that he knows what he is doing. When he pulls the parachute, he and I hover above Snohomish, eventually floating our way down.

“Arla, you have to trust me,” he says, when I’m in near hysterics at about 7,000 or 8,000 feet. “I’ve been doing this a very long time.”

Sorry, Vladmir, it’s not you, it’s me. I’m just not used to jumping out of planes.

The Paperwork:

An hour earlier I wasn’t so sure about the jump.

“Are we sure we want to do this?” my friend Ashwini asked me.

As she fidgeted nervously across from me, I eyed the pages of liability forms in front of us. She was voicing the same fears that had been floating around in my head.

“Well, we’ve made it this far already,” I replied. I skimmed the forms instead of reading every cautionary word because I was starting to freak myself out.

This is our second attempt at skydiving, and a little voice in my head was doubtful we would get the chance today because of the rain. We had already been turned away before due to weather conditions, but now we were here, more than six months after I first pitched the idea to whomever would listen.

We were sitting, along with two other friends of ours, in the common area of Skydive Snohomish, at Harvey Airfield in Snohomish, Wash., about an hour outside of Seattle.

“Don’t look so nervous,” an older man told another one of my friends. He’d just come back from a skydiving session and was in the process of wrapping up his parachute. “I’ve done this over a hundred times and I’m just a newbie here.”

The man was clearly not the only person at Skydive Snohomish with a passion for falling out of the sky. The place was starting to get crowded as other nervous first-time tandem jumpers arrived, along with more experienced skydiving enthusiasts suited up in their own colorful gear.

One girl approached me in a stylish green and black jumpsuit, smiling widely. Her name is Jeanna Lee, and she is the one who introduced me to Skydive Snohomish.

The UW junior spends nearly every weekend in the sky collecting as many jumps as possible, while spending the rest of her time convincing others they should take the plunge. She didn’t have to do much to convince me.

“Are you guys excited?” she cheerfully asked us.

I smiled nervously, finishing the paperwork. I am excited, I thought, but I also can’t really believe I’m doing this. Or maybe I don’t want to let myself believe it.

The Preparation:

Skydiving isn’t as easy — or as difficult — as it looks.

Before taking the plunge, we participated in a five-minute training class, where we learned the basics of what to do in the air. I nervously tried to remember everything step-by-step, but to no avail; I was in too much shock to remember steps one and two — have fun and arch your back, respectively — as soon as I fell out of the plane.

Since we were first-time divers jumping in tandem with a licensed diver, there was not much we needed to know. Our tandem partners were more knowledgeable about skydiving than we were, and they had the technique and expertise to follow through with the jump.

Lee says she is constantly learning every time she skydives to improve her method.

“It’s not easy because you’re not just falling; you have to learn how to control your body, how to fly with other people, how to gain new skills,” she says. “You must be aware of your body position to do formation skydiving. You can [try falling] vertical either head down or standing, which makes you go much faster than on your belly.”

The People:

Lee took her first dive on a whim.

“Well, like a lot of people say skydiving is one of those things you have to do before you die,” she said. “A friend of mine told me about it and then one day, I just decided, why not? I encourage everybody to try it. Free fall is really this unique feeling that you can’t feel anywhere else.”

Unlike most first-time divers, who take the plunge in large groups, the 21-year-old went to the jump site alone. Her first thought when she landed was, “Oh my god, I just have to go back every day,” she said.

She went back the next week and is now a licensed diver.

“I love it, I love the feeling of free fall obviously, but I love the community,” she said.

Lee has become a part of the close-knit community, diving every chance that she gets and spending as much time as she can at Skydive Snohomish.

“It’s just this really small community of people with similar interests from all these different backgrounds,” she said. “All these different kinds of people, from highly-educated backgrounds to people who haven’t finished high school, who all converge for the love of skydiving. It’s just a really nice way to live life. Also, it’s fun.”

She and the other experienced divers are constantly learning about safety measures, and despite what people think, she said, skydiving isn’t for reckless people, but is actually controlled risk.

“It’s like any other sport,” she said. “It’s not just throwing yourself out of a plane.”

The experience:

When we land, I realize I am in tears. The experience was exhilarating, but it was about more than just the jump. From start to finish, the anticipation and preparation of skydiving is invigorating. I am overwhelmed yet grateful to be back on solid ground.