Just a few years ago, I felt that my dreams of returning to flying were over. I had gotten my private-pilot license in the ’90s, but life got in the way, so I had not been flying for more than 20 years.

November 2, 1968, was a beautiful clear Saturday. I had just turned 19 and was a 145-pound freshman at the University of Houston when I went to the Galveston Skydivers in Dickinson, 30 miles away.

I have always been shy and introverted. I was a quiet kid, and I grew into an even quieter adult. In college, my introversion escalated into social anxiety.

Skydiving didn’t really change my life, it was my life. It started at a very young age, even though I didn’t make my first jump from an airplane until I was 18.

Ever since I was a little kid, doctors told me that I would be limited to certain activities because I was born with spina bifida. I never even entertained the idea of jumping out of a perfectly good airplane, and anyway, skydiving was something that terrified me. That all would change after going to Skydive Perris in California.