I went to bed that night, my mind wandering about what my mom bid on for the silent auction. Little did I know that, when I woke up I would be 90 feet in the air. I slumped down the dirty white carpeted stairwell and got out the only appealing cereal that was in our pantry. As the milk splashed all over the counter when I munched on my Honey Bunches of Oats , I saw that there was a slip of paper with my name on it. I scanned it and realized that it was for a company called “wings over the Rockies.” My brain took a couple minutes of strenuous puzzle solving (and a few crosswords) before I pieced it all together. I scarfed down the rest of my bunches, and raced up to my parents room, bear crawling up the stairs.

“Hey mom!” I yelled.“Yes honey?” She said, still putting on her mascara.
“What is this Wings over the Rockies thing on the counter?” I inquired,
“That is where we are going today,” she revealed.
“What is it?” I pushed.
“Well you are going to get to fly a helicopter!” she said.
“Huh? I thought you just said that I was going to fly a helicopter! I must of heard wrong,” I said hoping that I had heard right.
“That is what I said,” she replied.
“YESSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!” was what I was thinking on the inside, and my insides started to throb with excitement, but what actually came out was,“Cool.”

I sat down on the dog hair coated couch and wondered about the events of today. We loaded up the car and started the drive. Mile by mile, foot by foot, my ever growing anxiety was starting to build up. I felt my face start to burn red, and my eyes grow hazy and watery. I resisted the urge to let the tears come. Before I knew it, I was shuddering from fear and was doing my best not to tell my parents that I was about to grab the steering wheel and turn us back home. Just then, this big, barbed wire, automatic gate creaked open as we got near it. We rolled to a stop near one of those big-banana-shaped helicopters. Seeing that made all the fear and doubt that was welled up inside me immediately be drowned out and get replaced by extreme excitement. We walked to the place that you sign-in, and while my mom was doing that, my dad and I looked around the place. We saw airplanes, we saw helicopters with huge rotors, we saw this weird bird looking thing that had no engine.

The instructor came around the corner and led me to the heli I would be flying. I think I got my hopes up a little bit too high because when I saw this helicopter the size of an office chair, my jaw plummeted to the ground. It was a tiny, white, it had a bubbly windshield, a long tail with a enclosed rear rotor, and a rotor stack that was as tall as me. Yet, it still had the power to make me feel like I was a little ant. This feeling was helped even more when the instructor had to get a step-stool to allow me to enter the cockpit. Before we took off, he asked me if I wanted a door on my side! I mean COME ON!! He then decided to joke about it and say, “Just in case you want to puke out of the side of the heli while we are in the air,”
“He-he,” I laughed, not really hiding my unamusement.

As I got strapped in, it felt like one of those race-car seat belts that glues your back to the seat and the belt was grinding on my neck and pushing on my hips. I was instantaneously overwhelmed by the vast ocean of blinking and flashing buttons, knobs, levers, all just waiting to be pushed/pulled. He put an honest-to-God KEY in the ignition. As the rotor got up to speed, all sound was drowned out, the only thing I could hear was the whine of the engine. I put on my earphones so we could talk to each other, it crackled with static like an old T.V just being turned on. Just then my stomach fell the last 300 feet as the heli strained under it’s own weight and lifted 5 feet off the ground. Now you could not possibly dare to wipe the smile off my face without getting one plastered on your face.

My parents and the rest of the city became the size of lego blocks as the heli blasted into the sky. I should have been freaking out, taking deep calming breaths and trying to calm myself down, all the while telling myself “Don’t look down, don’t look down!” Instead a strange zen calm washed over me. The instructor worked me through step by step until I could fly this thing like it was my job. I wrapped my hands around the worn, leather control stick and tilted it forward the tiniest bit and the heli took off like a shot. I grabbed my hand away and accidentally pushed a button because soon a loud blaring sound filled the helicopter, and.....it......just....dropped.
I made no hesitation to let the tears come and the fear swallow me like a Cheerio. I could feel the beads of sweat streaming down my face. He was pushing buttons, he was pulling levers, anything that would get us back up. I just sat out of the way and was thinking,“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!”

When the shock stopped and my hands stopped shuddering, we continued on our “journey” over Coors Field. He let me take control of the stick. Due to the thousand plus hours I had spent playing video games I had become skilled at wielding a joystick. My self-training in the art of helicopter simulations kicked in and the rest of the ride was smooth sailing. I spotted (well, because I was looking for it) the landing pad and gave the control back over to the instructor. My hands were on the seat belt release as soon as the wheels touched the ground. I rushed into my parents arms and stayed there for quite a while.

As I look back, I know that my parents would say that I built character that day. As I look to my future I can look to my anchors for support when I feel stressed. I cannot do what I did that day without their help. I realized, on the car ride home, that what made me calm that day was that everyone ELSE was calm and so I stopped worrying. I was surrounded by people who thought I could do it, encouraged me, and made me believe I could do anything. THAT made all the difference.