to jump or not to jump...

I awaken to Dena hitting me.

“Wake up! Wake up! We’re here! We must have overslept! Hurry” We are apparently already in Prague, I think. It’s our first morning out of the U.S. and we are on an overnight train to Prague, Czech.

“Kim! C’mon! The train is stopping!”

I’m still half asleep. I’m wearing jammies. Yes, on a train. Don’t  ask. It seemed like a good idea last night. My overstuffed backpack is unzipped, half unpacked. Again, don’t ask. First time on a train.

I stand up, half zip the pack, throw on my boots, grab my bra and try to squeeze thru the door with my over packed pack. Dena is in the hall.

“C’mon Kim!”

We are standing in front of a closed train door. Crap. 

I’m still half asleep. My pack is unzipped, my boots are unlaced and I’m wearing my shorty jammies and holding my bra.

“I’m gonna open it” Dena says as she manhandles the door open. The train lurches. Under her force, the door opens. The train starts to chug.

“I’m gonna jump!” Now I’m starting to wake up. My pack is unzipped, my boots are unlaced. I’m wearing shorty jammies and holding my bra and the only person I know on this continent is about to jump off a moving train. Aaaand she does. Well, now I’m awake.

And alone! I move to her vacated spot in the doorway. The train is, of course, moving faster. I see Dena, laying on the platform, looking up at me, getting smaller and smaller in the distance. And almost in seemingly slow motion, she shouts:

“JUMP KIM!!!”

Jump, Kim…This feels like a moment. Could I do it? Was I a jumper?

We all have these moments in our life, moments that define us, that make us who we are- that separate the jumpers from the non-jumpers.

Sometimes jumping means just standing up for yourself or speaking your truth to someone or even jumping into a new job or a new relationship because you just felt you had to. But it always involves bravery and leaping into a place you’re not entirely sure you are capable of going. And we all have these moments, moments when the universe calls on us to make a choice: jump or don’t jump.

Which was I? Turns out, I was a jumper. Yup, I jumped. Bloodied, battered and bruised, but successfully reunited with Dena! Ah, success! And sure, then there was something-- if you must know--about the train stopping and reversing and hundreds of heads popping out the windows to watch and the conductor coming out shaking his head to tell us in his best broken English that we had jumped off at the employee station and Prague was still 10 km down the tracks where the doors open on their own….but whatever….I jumped! That’s what I choose to remember.

copyright K. Schultz 2010