The Onion, the Fear, and the Five Jumps That Changed Everything

As I sat on the C-47 aircraft, strapped into my parachute harness, the engines roaring as we lifted off the runway, my mind wasn’t on the jump.

It wasn’t on the 1,500 feet of empty air beneath me.

It was on an onion.

2020: The Onion Incident

It was 2020. My ex-husband had just come home from work. I went to help him cook dinner, like I always did. And, like always, I was met with criticism.

I had never been taught how to cook. I didn’t grow up in a home where those things were passed down, and I was still figuring it out. That day, I reached for the onion, knife in hand. I started slicing.

And he snapped.

"What the fuck are you doing? You can't even cut an onion right!"

His voice sliced through me sharper than the blade in my hand.

I froze. Dropped everything. My hands trembled. His anger didn’t stop—he seethed, pointing out every tiny mistake, every flaw, every way I was failing.

"Just let me do it!" he shouted.

I stood there, watching him take over, my body locked in place. But it wasn’t just about the onion. It was every moment, every word, every time he had chipped away at me, piece by piece, until there was almost nothing left.

And my mind? My own thoughts?

They agreed with him.

I felt worthless. A failure at something as simple as cooking. As if that somehow meant I was incapable of anything at all.

The room blurred. My body shook. And for the first time, I believed I was nothing.

That moment became one of many. One of the thousands of ways my confidence had been systematically broken down.

But that moment stayed with me. Because I couldn't even cut an onion.

That sentence lived in my head for years. It sat there, waiting.

Until I was standing in a parachute harness, ready to jump out of a plane.

2024: Standing on a Runway in a Parachute Harness

Four years later. A different version of me. A different life.

Yet, as I stood on the runway, preparing for my first parachute jump, heart pounding, adrenaline coursing through my veins, that fucking onion resurfaced.

Why now?

I had spent years rebuilding myself. Years proving, time and time again, that I was not the woman he tried to convince me I was.

And yet, standing there, staring at the aircraft that would take me 1500 ft into the sky, about to do something that required absolute trust in myself, all I could think about was that moment in the kitchen.

The journey from that shaking, panicked girl to the one standing in that harness was long and brutal.

I had to relearn everything. I had to unlearn his voice in my head. I had to choose myself, over and over again, even when it felt impossible.

I had spent years forcing myself to grow. To say yes to things that scared me. To take up space. To push past discomfort. To rebuild trust in my own capabilities.

And yet, as I stared at that plane, every fear, every self-doubt, every moment of self-betrayal clawed at me.

That fucking onion.

I clenched my fists. I gritted my teeth. I growled at the fear, the negativity, the ghost of that old life that still thought it had a hold on me.

I was terrified.

But this time, I fought back.

Because unlike that day in the kitchen, I didn’t freeze.

I didn’t back down.

I didn’t let myself crumble.

I Jumped. Five Times.

I stood at the edge of the aircraft door, the world wide and endless beneath me.

And I jumped.

Once.

Then again.

Then four more times.

Every time, the fear screamed louder. But I screamed back.

The fear didn’t win. The self-doubt didn’t win.

And for the first time, I saw it for what it was: an illusion.

The Proof I Needed

That first jump changed something in me.

It was undeniable proof that I was capable. That I was stronger than every voice that told me I wasn’t. That I had the power to override fear, to control my own mind, to trust myself completely.

And that moment in the kitchen?

It meant nothing.

Because fear, self-doubt, and all the voices that try to keep us small?

They don’t define us.

We do.

Not bad for a girl who was once told she couldn’t even cut an onion.