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Enjoy the ride

I was seven years old and it was my first recollected trip to Disney Land with my two brothers, Danny and Davey, ages 5 and 9 respectively.  My younger brother, Danny, and I were joined at the proverbial hip, mouths hanging slightly agape, eyes filled with wonder, mouse ears and an overload of color.  My elder brother Davey, wanted to ride Space Mountain, a ride that was no doubt thrilling for him but filled my younger brother with a belly rumbling sense of dread.   Danny and I were safety harnessed into what felt like our doom and a large bar was lowered and latched in front of us. We sat hands gripped, white-knuckles exposed, breath faltering.  Danny was expressly terrified and I worried over his response to our impending end.  My older brother sat in front of us, grinning broadly, hungrily ready to set off.  The ride jostled forward at what seemed like a break-neck speed and Danny clung to my arm, screaming with ear splitting terror.  I tried to comfort him over the next several minutes while he predicted our inevitable doom and our older brother yelled back at us that we were "gonna go upside down and flip soon".  To which Danny wailed louder and tried to crawl into the base of car in an effort to attain safety.  I tried to assure him that was an unwise choice considering our speedy descent into the bowels of hell.  I was holding him, breathlessly assuring him that Davey was surely lying and we were not  actually scheduled for death at this early hour of life.  It was the worst ride in recorded history.  When we rolled to the finish, Danny stopped crying took a deep breath and announced, "THAT WAS AWESOME!!! LET'S DO IT AGAIN!"  I stared in disbelief and almost throttled him on the spot.  I would have had I not been too busy nursing an ulcer and brushing back my newly acquired grey locks.
I think about that day often.
I think life is like that ride sometimes.
We have a choice.  We can scream and be miserable.  We can control or try to comfort.  We can gag back terror OR we can just throw our arms in the air and ENJOY the ride.
WEEEEEEEEE!
The choice is ours.   The ride doesn't change but our experience is drastically altered by the quality of our engagement.

Comments

ProfoundAlchemy said…
How exciting.
Seems I didn't care at an early age.
Carrying a bit now.
Really caring
January 25, 2014 at 5:35 PM
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