The Day I Tried to Fly---My Teenage Dream, A Rooftop, and Gravity

Being an adolescent, there is always this type of madness and stubbornness that come with it, it might not be for everyone though. That innocence, been strong headed, curiosity and a mixture of strength and courage. At age 14, I was already the president and head of doing strange things. Anytime I am bored or curious, my mind is always exploding with imagination, creativity and nonstop ideas that are always fascinating but can be chaotic sometimes. Literally, I tried flying like a batman, that was the craziest thing I ever did that I can recall.

Just like that way the sun is out at the moment and everywhere feels so hot, that was how it was that faithful afternoon in my neighborhood compound. As usual, there has been power outage for someday and everywhere is becoming boring but with my two close friends back then around, Samuel and Beauty, it was a bit lively and insane. There was this abandoned building in the neighborhood where we used to play, we all sat on the roof of this building daring eachother to do crazy stuff—jump, sound like an animal to disturb the neighbourhood and distract passerby. Then this crazy Idea came to my mind like a lightning bolt will come down from the heavens: 'I think If I jump from this roof top, I'll land safely"—i thought it was those Jackie Chan stunts.

I was laughed at by everyone, but to me, I was not a joke.

Just with my childish and teenage mentality, I once thought I could do adventurous and wild with zero pain, just like falling from the sky into a heap of soft forms, my crazy and wild imagination.

At that very moment when I made that choice, I climbed up and located the highest point of the roof, and stood like the marvel hero, Batman, like he was about to take off even though my fragile heart was beating so fast like a drum beaten during the traditional festival. I could recall my female friend, Beauty telling me not to jump and shouting, "Dave, you go injure yourself, you go break your leg oo. I'm not there oh!" But my teenage self with foolish confidence and my adrenaline pumping very fast did not allow me to listen.

I jumped.

Like time and universe stoped to laugh at me for half seconds as I jumped, I felt suspended in the air before the force of gravity came down on me like a thunderstorm storm. I crashed into the sand with my mouth filled with dust and a twisted left ankle. I did not feel the pain at first until some few seconds later. My friend, Samuel came running at me shouting, Beauty was emotional with her noisy laughter before tears rolled down her eyes. I was just laying on the floor helpless, half in pain, and the other half of me was filled with pride that yes, I did something non of them could do and I survived.

Looking back at what happened then now as an adult, I wondered at how a adolescent brain of mine could have taken such a big risk that I saw as fun and pleasure. But what I've got to know as time goes on is that during teenage age, there is this part of our brain known as the prefrontal cortex that evaluates results and consequences. And psychologically, during that age period, rather that risks to feel like a warning, we see it as a challenge hence that moment I was on the roof top, there was nothing like fear for me, all I saw was fun and pleasure.

At the moment, we don't pay much attention to how reckless teenage play can turn out, but what most people cannot see is that behind every teenage recklessness is a showoff to be noticed by others and to prove our worth.

Fallen from that great hight at that point taught me about how resilience I can be and not just about being suspended for half s second before I finally twisted my ankle. Even though my left ankle was bandaged and I limped all around for some few weeks with a memory of pride. I was fearless even though the teenage part of me that time felt ridiculous. And to be honest, I sometimes miss that part of me.

If you ask me if I would do that again, maybe not. But I can never forget that faithful day I felt like a batman by trying to fly think that the sky would catch me, the story was otherwise which I would tell my children someday.

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