My Inspiration

Yesterday was an awesome awesome day. My sister Bethany and I headed to the Shuswap with her friend Rita for a day on her boat on the lake. (Side note, where do British Columbians go to trade their shoes??? the Shuswap)

We boated on her speed boat in 37 degree weather with no clouds and a bright sun. We stopped on a random beach for lunch, stopped at a store that floated in the middle of the water so you could only get their by boat, we found an awesome swimming beach. We boated some more and then swam off the boat with a waterfall tumbling down the mountain on my left, and a view of the coastal mountains and rocky mountains on my left. Amazing. We boated some more and then went over to Copper Island in the middle of the lake where people often cliff jump. I hummed and hawed about doing it, because it was really high and dangerous and you had to free rock climb to get to the cliff. But then I thought to myself "You just swam at the base of a waterfall looking at the Rockies. You have to do this! You are in BC. This is an awesome opportunity that might not come along again."

So I jumped out of the boat and swam toward the rock cliffs jutting out of the water. I climbed to the top of the cliff very carefully, knowing that a) i was wet and b) the crevaces in the the rocks would mean broken bones for sure if I slipped. Very treacherous. I got to the cliff and stood there looking out over the lake and the mountains and then I looked down. And it was VERY high. Very high. I stood there for a few minutes getting my courage up and the yelled to my sister that it was too high and I couldn't do it. i climbed down a bit. Bethany started heckling me. "Nikki, theres 10 year olds jumping off the cliff. You are a teacher you should be the example DO IT!"

Her pressure made me climb back up. I looked down. It was too high. I climbed down again. Bethany continued heckling me. I climbed back up. It was freaking high. VERY high. I climbed down again. This time Bethany said something that really stuck with me:

"NIKKI! IF DR. QUINN CAN DO IT SO CAN YOU. SHE JUMPED OFF A CLIFF THAT WAS WAY HIGHER THAN THIS ONE."

It was so true.

"You're right!" I yelled back. "She did! I'm doing it!" Seriously, if Dr. Quinn could do it, so could I. I climbed back up and jumped realizing on the way down that Dr. Quinn jumped off a cliff because some crazy renegade Indians were trying to kill her AND Sully held her hand the whole time. I had a) no indians chasing me and b) no handsome backwoodsman holding my hand. Even ONE of those would have been a better reason for jumping than just doing it for 'fun'.

But I did it. I can officially call myself a cliff jumper.

Seriously, Dr. Quinn IS my inspiration. Time and time again she inspires me to do different things, move west, jump off cliffs, have crushes on boys with tight deerskin pants, just wonderful wonderful things.