On the flight home Monday, reveling in another first class upgrade with my legs curled underneath me on the seat, having survived a very large drop over Lake Michigan which went unexplained by the cabin crew but did not leave us entirely unrattled, I was peering down at the immense patchwork of farms in Wisconsin, remembering that I leapt headfirst towards that the other week wearing nothing but a hot guy with a parachute, and I was a grinning fool. And then I realized that for the rest of my life, I’ll always have had more takeoffs than landings.

I think that’s a really beautiful metaphor.