Overcoming fears

I am not a rollercoaster person. I have never technically been on one. The only rides I would ride at the county fair were the ferris wheel ... and well that's about it. I hate the tilt-a-whirl and the one time I rode the spinny, fast moving red thing, I cried and had a mini panic attack. I was 17.

Today I got free passes to go to Disneyland and the connecting adventure park. I did the Grizzly Water Run which was mildly out of my comfort zone because it included getting wet and some fairly big drops. We walked over to the new rollercoaster and I could feel my stomach at my ankles as I watched the cars spin around, upside down, in the outline of the Mickey face. I can imagine my neck snapping and my internal organs coming up in my throat. That one is eliminated because of the upside down action.

So we meander throughout the park and end up at the Tower of Terror. Me, thinking to myself: "No effing way. I have never and never will do something this scary." My plan is to stand in line and then bail out at the last second to watch. So at least I could say I almost did but not actually have the horrifying experience. The thing is, I kept looking at the other people in line and thinking they looked like a bunch of wimps and I was definitely much braver than them. While analyzing all of this, I forgot to bail.

After some stories about the Twlight Zone and a long drawn out process to make everyone incredibly antsy, you board an elevator which takes you to another elevator shaft where you sit down and they double check your seat belt and make you tighten it. It goes slow at first as the elevator creeps up. You see yourself disappear in the mirror like a ghost and all is fine. Then you start dropping random distances. Absolute free falling and stop, then falling again. Then you climb all the way back to the top, the doors open so you can see how high you are and then you just fall. 13 stories at 39 mph.

Scariest thing I have ever done. Hands down. My hands were still violently shaking 10 minutes later.

Sometimes I feel like my life is one big Tower of Terror ride. The feeling though, when the doors open, you take off your seatbelt and the doors open to a much safer place and you think "Oh my god, I think I made it," might be worth the terrifying, mind-erasing, paralyzing fear.