cedar point

In the summer of 2019 I was in a shitty relationship and was spending a lot of time with friends as a result. As a part of my inability to cope with the emotional strain of being lied to, I often turned to drug use to cope, rather than just confronting my feelings. I don't remember much about that summer, combining high doses of Xanax and weed led to a big black hole in my memory, which is super unfortunate because it causes me to struggle with telling this story accurately.

Essentially the summer of 2019 was also the time in my life that I got over my irrational fear of large rollercoasters, I had also recently lost a lot of weight and was feeling more confident in my body than ever before. That summer, I spent almost every weekend using my Cedar Point season pass to go ride rollercoasters and eat hotdogs for 12 hours. Because the park is only a 2 hour drive from where I live, we must have gone 6 or 7 times and there were many moments there that I remember vividly as being pivotal in my experience.

This was one of them:

This is about the time I rode the Millennium Force for the first time. For the uninitiated, this is the coaster that Cedar Point is most famous for (or at least was before the erection of Steel Vengeance in 2018). This particular roller coaster features a 310 foot lift hill climb and a 300 foot drop at an 80 degree angle that goes 93 miles per hour. My entire life, this ride taunted me, haunted me, made me feel small and scared. I remember the first time I went to the park I got in line and bailed, I was like 8 at the time. Now I have returned at the age of 21, fueled by a drive of self renewal and peer pressure I got on the ride. In the 60 or so seconds it took to get to the top of the hill my mind told me to run, escape from death and I noticed the thought: "You are not in control, relax and ride". I got to the top, saw Sandusky in its full glory, saw the thousands of patrons and the park's 70 rides and FELL flying so rapidly I could do nothing but experience it. I was thrilled and exhilarated and I knew my life was different from that moment on. I was no longer afraid of things that made me feel small, I accepted that a lack of control in situations can still produce a positive outcome, and I learned that surrendering to the reality created by decision making can be fun and is always purposeful.

Needless to say I have never met a ride I was afraid to get on since.