The Drop Zone

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On Friday I went to Kings Island. This is an amusement park near Cincinnati, Ohio with a lot of roller coasters that can be scary. I haven't been there for over a decade, so the last time I went I can recall getting on the rides simply because I didn't want to show that I was afraid.

There was a particular ride called 'The Drop Zone' in which it takes you directly up 315 feet and drops you in a suspended free fall. The last time I was there I can remember getting to the top of that thing and just being terrified. I would get super nervous and clench up tightly, just wanting to "get it over with".

The ride was fun but I never wanted to do it again.

Most recently, The Drop Zone was, again, something that I remembered being terrifying at the top. I rode the damned thing anyways. Although, this time, something was different. When the ride reached its peak height I was not scared. I found myself breathing and meditating. My nerves were calm and it didn't allow my mind to wander off into worse case scenarios.

Instead, I enjoyed the far off distant view of all of the trees and enjoyed the perspective. When the ride released and we all dropped back down, it was phenomenal. The ride was exhilarating and I rode it again and again.

I felt like a little kid who first learned to ride a bike without training wheels. None of the rides seemed bigger than me. Actually, I was completely relaxed on all of them, and it made each roller coaster so much more enjoyable.

I suppose our emotions and personal experiences are the same way. We learn them to be a particular way when we are younger. We stay away from them because of previous experiences may not have turned out to be good for us. Avoiding the ones that are scary and jumping on the ones that seem more familiar.

That has been a lot of my life. I wasn’t really taught to be brave so much as to simply not show you are scared. As in, you can be scared, just don’t show it. Which isn’t courage at all. Courage is acknowledging an emotion and also relaxing into the experience of it so that I can react more as myself in my natural state.

Of course, there are tools and ways to become better at handling it, but we’re not raised this way. It’s more of a ‘tuck your mess under the bed’ kind of living. You know, make it look clean, but when you need to pull something out of the chaos it’s just going to be the same mess… if not worse.

I’ve still got a lot of stuff under the bed.

Except, as I go through the rummage, I’m putting things as they need to be. No random drawers here. The mess doesn’t seem too big of a ride for me anymore. I want to feel exhilarated, and like I want to live day after day, again and again.

So what’s in my rummage? I have held onto something for so long that probably should have been left long ago. But the more I share this, the more I find people relate to the situation and feelings I express.

While I was in college I had a pretty good relationship. Without going too far into that I will just say I was put into a dark place afterwards.

I really resented myself and felt like a failure, all the while building up an identity that didn’t show he was hurt from it. I still played happy. I worked on self-development and self-help and that actually worked. It gave me perspective and knowledge; but not experience.

After several years, over a decade, I finally got into a relationship again. I would have thought that since so much time had passed all of the previous feelings from over a decade ago would have been gone. They say that time heals everything, right? Not necessarily so. A lot of me was still “stuck” in the unresolved emotions from the past.

It’s humiliating to admit this but it’s just the truth.

So the new relationship didn’t last too long.

Again, I find myself going into feeling like a failure from time to time. But this time around, like The Drop Zone, I catch myself meditating and enjoying the perspective. What I see is all of my growth and necessary challenges from the years between. All of the things I used to grip over and avoid I can now just relax and sort myself through it. (Not always easy!)

There is exhilaration within this. Instead of side-stepping the way I feel it becomes easier to open up, and as a result I find more and more people I can relate to at an authentic level. I don't necessarily feel like a kid again, but I do feel like I can be myself around others. That’s what makes the day worth living over and over again. This brings me to the trust I am seeking in fellow human beings.

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