It’s hard to describe this type of roller coaster ride that I felt like I’ve been on the past ten years. I spend most of my time trying to forget that I’m on it, hoping that if I do actually forget, then the tracks of the roller coaster will eventually bring me to the top of a hill and just stay at a plateau for a while. (Perhaps maybe then I’d be able to get off this ride.) But it seems like every time I hit a peak, I end up free-falling back down at an uncontrollable speed.
And after what seems like a million of free-fall moments, I’ve learned that the best defense against feeling like shit was to pretend that I was okay. (That’s the reason behind me trying to forget that I’m on this stupid roller coaster to begin with.)
I’ve also learned recently that I need to break myself of that habit of ignoring what I’m feeling and learn to acknowledge these emotions in order to get over them and move on. The task of breaking that habit is proving to be more difficult than I thought.
As for how I feel now … almost three weeks after the initial disappointment? I’m still sad but I’m no longer free-falling. I’m at a plateau. But that plateau is more towards the bottom of the hill instead of the top. I’m hoping with more effort on my part, that I’ll start feeling that roller coaster start pulling me back up again.
Roller coasters are certainly an appropriate metaphor for what you’ve been experiencing.
I’d like to break it down though and engage you in a discussion of the type of coaster.
Now being an aficionado of coasters in my day, are we talking Meanstreak, Bluestreak, or Gemini? We all know Cedar Pointe in Ohio has the best ones.
Now I’m a little old school—having succumbed to old age and paranoia— I can only reference only the older coasters. Maybe the coasters you refer to are more like the Wild Cat or the Mine Ride?
If you said Meanstreak, I could see that. Days of anger about infertility.
Bluestreak. Days of depression and sadness. Thankfully this coaster was one of the shortest ever.
Gemini? Characterized by, in its day, unbelievable and unprecedented highs, but all you had to do was sit in the front car to see the upcoming depths of the fall.
Were you the type to raise your hands in free-fall glee? Or white-knuckle clutch the iron bar so tightly the ferrous oxide became your signature perfume (at least until you were soaked in the putrid Lake Erie recycled waters of the log ride)?
Now the Wild Cat, what anomaly of a coaster! Is it a car ride or coaster? It’s both. Ahhh, an identity problem, certainly. But once you accepted it, it became a coaster classic.
The Mine Ride, rickety rackety but still a classic. Some days you feel old and that there are newer exciting models. But as a connoisseur of fine things, give me a classic.
I love that. Give me a ticket to your amusement park. I’ll take a lifetime pass. Expires never.