Sometimes knowledge can be limiting
As I’ve mentioned, I just celebrated the big 5-0. The sky didn’t fall, I’m still breathing, and I actually didn’t have a nervous breakdown. Instead, I had an amazing 3 day celebration, family, food, and fun – it could not have been more perfect.
Friday night, my actual birthday, we had a dinner at Parc.
Saturday, we headed to Hershey Park. We had a great time, seeing the sites, riding the rides, eating the food. However, while I was having a lot of fun, I knew that my husband 
would want to ride a few roller coasters, and I also knew, no one in our group would be able to ride with him. Now, if we go back to my teen years, and even my early twenties, I loved, loved, loved riding roller coasters! I use to stand in line over and over again to ride them at Six Flags, especially the Shock Wave. That is until I realized that you could fall out of them. I’m not sure if that realization came around the same time I developed a horrific fear of heights or not, but the fear is real. The incident of a woman falling out of the Texas Giant, last year – a ride I’ve ridden more times than I can think of, did not help any.
So what do you do when your significant other wants to do something you are not excited about, and maybe a little terrified of? No, you do not tell them to do it on their own. You suck it up, and you ride a few with them*. So I rode two of them, but only one of them was truly frightening, The Great Bear. As I was being strapped in, I was 
trying desperately to remember how much I use to love riding these monstrosities. How I wanted to be as close to the front as possible, just so I could see what was coming next. I will admit, there were a few moments I felt the excitement, and even giggled, and then the knowledge flooded my mind. I remembered that these were man-made – not perfect. I truly wished I didn’t know the things that cause me to be terrified. I really wanted to be ignorant of them, at least for the time I was on it, but I couldn’t get it out of my mind. By the time the ride came to an end, I was shaken, and a tad green, but I survived and my husband had a great time.
Sunday was my reward. Spent an entire day at the Hershey ‘Chocolate’ Spa, where we were all pampered like royalty. I left feeling relaxed and renewed. It was the perfect ending, to a wonderful celebration weekend.
So now our family that came to visit for the festivities have gone home, and we are back to our daily routines, at least for a few weeks before we have more family coming up and our upcoming move to deal with. I now have a while before I have to face the dreaded rides again, and I’m hoping that I am able to forget some of the things I know between now and then and walk into the park blissfully ignorant of the possible dangers of those rides. If not that, then maybe I will have found a coping mechanism that will allow me to ride them while just enjoying the moment.
There Were Words... 