Adrenaline Junkie

I feel down today, a bit depressed. I had a great weekend. Friday night was spent at another painting class with bottle of sangria. The purpose of this class was to take me outside of my comfort zone; we were incorporating broken glass and joint compound into the canvases. Mine did not turn out very well and I'm blaming the joint compound. The piece was too busy and incorporated too many elements without a cohesive theme, which made it basically look like a 5 year-old's work.

Saturday I met up with Katie and her sister to go zip-lining. We drove up to the base of the Appalachian Trail and far, far away from civilization. We had to pass a ground course in zip-lining before we entered the course. My main fear was not being able to hold my own body weight while you pull yourself up the cable, but this turned out to be a non-issue because the harnesses hold 90% of your body weight. I was surprised at how safe zip-lining is. We went out with two guides: one who went ahead and waited to catch you at the other end of the line and one who hooked you up to the steel cable. You break yourself by—get this—taking your (gloved) hand and applying pressure and creating friction on the cable. For the faster runs, one of the guides would set out a rope some distance from the end that you would just crash into to slow you down. It's all very high tech.

Everyone was a bit nervous, but after the ground course, I wasn't. Up in the tree tops, we were always connected to something. Even when we were climbing up ladders and walking across rope bridges. If you did slip, you weren't going to go very far. It got to the point where I didn't break as hard as I should have, which made the guide have to catch me on more than one occasion, but that was okay because he was kind of yummy. I assume he was also several years younger because he told me he just graduated from my alma mater, and I can't believe I am now old enough to find this inappropriate.

Apparently I didn't read the brochure all the way through because there was also a 30-foot rappel in the middle of the course, and we were all shocked as we got to it. One older lady in our group threw a panic attack and refused to rappel down the rope. Only everyone else had gone but me, so I was stuck in a tree with the guide trying to calm the crying lady down. Awkward. By the time it was my turn, I was tired of standing out on the platform, so after the guide told me how to hold the rope, I swung out on my own and dropped in record time, once again having to be steadied by the yummy guide.

"You've obviously blazed before," he said, impressed.

"Nope. First time."

And once again, rappelling isn't that big of a deal because the harnesses are supporting 90% of your body weight. The top hand at your head is just to hold the rope for steadiness and the bottom hand under your butt is just to release so you can drop. Easy stuff. And once again it felt safe because there is a person at the bottom holding the rope in case anything happens; he is just there to spot you.

So I learned two new skill sets this weekend. I am thinking about finding a rappelling blaze and trying doing more of that.

Saturday night the girls came over to my mother's house where I was staying and we brought our own canvases to paint to make up for the disasters we created Friday night. I am much happier with Saturday's result.

Sunday I slept.

And now it's Monday and I don't have any whirlwind activities planned. I mean, I have craft night Tuesday and Saturday I'm going to the shooting range and Sunday to a baseball game. But it's not anything adrenaline pumping, and I really feel like I'm crashing after this weekend. It's known as Adrenal Fatigue and it has real, physical symptoms, which I guess explains why people get addicted to this kind of stuff. I seriously feel a bit depressed today.

I wonder if before, boys were my adrenaline: getting high when they called and crashing if they didn't.

My name is Sarah and I am an adrenaline junkie.