Cresting the Hill

At one time, I really, really loved going to amusement parks and riding roller coasters. My all-time favorite is the Giant Dipper at the Santa Cruz boardwalk in California. It's one of those older, rickety, noisy, terrifying wooden coasters that used to be on every top 10 list. It's been around since the 1920s, but every time you ride it, you are just sure it's going collapse. It shakes, especially on really windy days. The summer I was 13, I rode that coaster ALL DAY one Saturday with my hands up in the air. I was so proud of myself and I still count this feat of daring as one of my major life accomplishments.

One of the most terrifying and exhilarating parts of this ride is that it starts by immediately going down a steep hill in a very dark tunnel. And I mean dark. You have no idea if a turn is coming or (my own secret fear) some sort of support beam is going to smash you in the head. No one to my knowledge has ever been smashed in the head, but this is what I'm afraid of. I always duck during this part, which reminds me of a car game we played as children, where we ducked when we went through a tunnel (or was it that when we held our breath? No, I think you hold your breath when you pass a cemetery and lift your feet when you go over a bridge.)

Then you finally emerge into the blinding California sun after what seems like forever to start that long, slow climb up the first big hill. On this and every other coaster I've ever ridden, I find myself on this first big climb all hunkered down with my eyes screwed shut praying, "Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. I'm such a moron. I'm such an idiot. This is stupid, stupid, stupid, shit. Why did I do this? What was I thinking? This is the stupidest, scariest thing I've ever done. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit..." And then you crest the hill and Wheeeeeeeee!

Yeah, so of course this is a major metaphor for where I am right now as I'm sitting here after waking up at 3am again covered in sweat. Maybe it's just menopause, but I wish I could remember what I'm dreaming about.....

I have come out of the terrifying, cold, dark tunnel (I hope!), but I'm stuck slowly climbing that first big hill and all I can think is "Oh shit". I keep hoping to crest and get to the fun part and let go, but this is just the longest hill ever. I think I have actually forgotten what that absolute exhilaration of the crest feels like and have just spent some time checking out how much it would cost to fly from Seattle to San Francisco or Monterey or San Jose, rent a car, drive to the boardwalk, ride the Giant Dipper over and over and over again until I don't need to anymore. As if joy is a physical memory that I have forgotten and desperately need to remember. I want to go today! But the park is closed for the winter. Sigh.

I have this idea that I used to be brave -- fearless even -- but I'm not any more. I'm not sure either statement is entirely true, but that's the idea I have. The last time I rode any kind of roller coaster must have been between 10-15 years ago. A bunch of old friends in their late 20s/early 30s all called in sick one day to our various jobs, drove from Washington, DC to Hershey Park, PA and spent the day riding rides, bitching about the crowds & lines & annoying teenagers (which is fairly ironic 'cause I'm pretty sure we may have been just as obnoxious that day), drinking too much and what not. (And by "what not" I'm pretty sure that I mean there was some pot smoking going on.) I mostly remember that I didn't ride some rides I wanted to ride because the man who would become my husband didn't want to. He'd had lower back surgery for some ruptured disks and it would hurt his back to whip around the turns and I didn't want him to be standing there all alone watching everyone else have fun.

That night we saw Aerosmith play at the park and got home around 2am. I think we all made it to work the next day, which I'm very sure I couldn't manage today. It was a very conscious regression back to the carefree days of some other time that we all remembered so vividly but that never really existed quite as beautifully as we remembered. Weird 'cause I don't think any of us had been to an amusement park together, but this day of playing hooky represented some sort of freedom and lack of responsibility to all of us. Pretty soon, this particular group stopped hanging out as a big gang so much, started focusing on work more, started getting married and having babies and generally growing up. Pretty standard stuff. At any rate, the crowds, lines, costs of the amusement park no longer seemed worth the fun. I don't know about the rest of the group, but I think I became too afraid, too risk-averse, to really enjoy it any more.

Not to totally change the subject, because somehow I think it's related in the sense of What do I need to do to crest the hill?..... Yesterday I posted that "Yeah, but" exercise about writing and my sister posted a comment with a point-by-point counter argument. And then she called me to poke holes in my irrational thinking some more (Hey, I never claimed these fears weren't totally insane and stupid!). I love my sister, by the way, and think that she is one of the few people in our wider family who is emotionally brave. I don't know where she got it from 'cause neither of our parents are particularly brave in that sense.

So anyway, when I think about that list I made, a lot of those things I don't hear in my own voice. I hear them in my mother's voice, her father's voice, my father's voice, his mother's voice, the voices of various teachers or other authoritative figures. I've been carrying these voices around for a long time and can't wait to let go.

Here's what I hear in my own voice and it's so scary it couldn't even make the list: That by writing I will reveal or make visible this awful, hideous, deformed, misshapen, ugly, monstrous, terrifying Thing inside of me that I've managed to keep successfully hidden all these years and all the people I need to love me will suddenly coil in disgust and hate me and I'll be shunned and isolated and destroyed. Ack! Where the hell is that coming from? I mean really, I've thought some forbidden thoughts, but nothing bad enough to warrant THAT. Talk about irrational! And then I think, "Well, DUH STUPID! Isn't that what everyone is afraid of?"

So this thing, writing, that I've very carefully NOT been doing for so very long, I have somehow come to believe will destroy me when in fact it may be the thing most likely to save my life. OK. So destroy me. Bring it on. It's not like I have a whole bunch of really fantastic stuff in my life to hang on to! Wheeeeeeeee........