Glee/Terror

I'm addicted to the log chute rides at amusement parks...the ones modeled after Splash Mountain. The ones that send you careening down a big drop at the end (or the beginning if you're on the Atlantis ride at Sea World...did NOT see that coming), the drop getting you sufficiently soaked. I'm not sure why I like them so much, because they scare me. It's true that I want to ride them and can't wipe the grin from my face after I do, but there's always a moment--usually as the log car is slowly ascending the pre-drop climb--that I ask myself what the hell I was thinking getting on.

It's a pretty accurate parallel to life, at least for me it is. Because when I look back on the decisions I've made, particularly the weighty ones with significant change or impact upon my life, the options I've chosen were usually the ones that scared me. It's not that I'm drawn to scary things, it's more that I can never justify using fear as a reason to give up something I want.

Recently because of some decisions I've made--calculated risks, I'd call them--I now find myself, well, sort of screwed in a particular aspect of my life. Some have asked if I wish I had made different decisions back when I had the chance, but I don't. Because I believe in going after what you want most, and that's what I did. And I'd do it again. Unpleasant as they are, things like disaster and failure and the going awry of best-laid plans are still not as punishing as regret for never trying...or for letting fear keep you from choosing the thing you wanted most.

Which is why I took a cab over to the Mall of America this past week while in Minneapolis for work. It's why I waited in a long and stuffy line, why I sat in the front seat despite being warned I'd get wet, why I was giddy even in the presence of panic as the drop approached, and why I came back to Cleveland feeling more myself than I have in weeks. It's also why I bought the overpriced picture. Evidence that Glee/Terror happens. And that sometimes it does us good to seek it out.