Embracing Fear

I don’t know if it’s because we’ve been in pandemic mode for nine months and I’m bored of it, or because I’ve been playing a little too much Roller Coaster Tycoon, but for some reason or another I really want to ride a roller coaster. A big, fast roller coaster with giant drops and chains of loops that make you question whether the restraints are actually going to hold you in. I want the kind of coaster where you wait in line for an hour and a half in the beating sun to ride a dirty coaster for a solid minute and thirty seconds, then run back to the end of the line to repeat the process again. A coaster with a giant set of metal tracks that looks like a snake wrapped up around itself, or perhaps one of those wooden coasters that was invented in the 1920’s and about as reliable as you’d expect from a ride built a hundred years ago.

Maybe it’s a little chilly now in Upstate New York to go to the amusement park. Even if it was open, I want the real experience of going to the amusement park, the kind where strangers are pushing up against you in line and the seat’s perhaps a little sweaty from the last guy. Maybe it’s a little much to ask for right now. Besides, life as it is right now is already enough of a roller coaster.

The thing that makes roller coasters so appealing is that it’s controlled fear. From the moment the restraints close and the cars hitch onto the chain, you put all your trust on whatever flimsy handlebars or seatbelt holds you in. As you start to climb up the hill, the air gets colder and colder, and looking down, if you can even turn your head to look back, everything gets smaller and smaller. You reach the summit, the peak, and everything stops still as the anticipation of the drop comes. Your heart races. People are screaming. Then there’s the rush as you descend onto the tracks below. Constant zips and bumps and the world flying by you at ungodly speeds. With every loop you feel your stomach and your brains shake and tumble as your body tries to understand gravity, with every burst of speed the muscles in your face are stretched and pulled like taffy in a candy shop. It’s terrifying, yes, but there’s thrill and excitement that doesn’t come from anything else. A thrill that drives thousands to line up every year, waiting in line to be strapped in and set off on the ride.

That said, people have died on roller coasters.

A Never Ending Ride

All of that thrill with roller coasters, the excitement behind it, planning and money that goes into it, the advertisements and t-shirts and love for it, it all works because roller coasters are a controlled fear. Perhaps more importantly, they’re a conquerable fear. It took me until I was ten to go on my first upside down ride at an amusement, and my Dad still laughs at how nervous I was beforehand. But when you control that fear, embrace it and take it head on, you manage to conquer it. The fear is still there, of course, but it doesn’t mean what it did before. You’ve done it! You can check it off your bucket list, buy the t-shirt, take the selfie, perhaps, even ride it again.

Roller coasters are so famously synonyms for fear or fast paced unpredictability that they’re just as much adjectives as much as they are nouns. It’s so common a metaphor that I’d say it’s probably been overused (in fact, looking back at my own posts I think it’s used a lot). But it’s really not always an appropriate metaphor. Roller coasters are awesome, and most of the time when comparing something to a roller coaster, that other thing is not awesome. Roller coasters have ends. They have t-shirts. They have controlled fear. Other things don’t. Emotions don’t. Pandemics don’t. Elections don’t. The fears that I, and many others deal with now, are not roller coasters. These are never ending rides, and we are unwilling riders.

The fact of the matters is, we’re on a ride we can’t control. And it’s absolutely riddled with fear. Cases of the virus rise, and even for the skeptics or the healthy, it’s hard to argue with numbers. Fears rise over whether we’re headed back into lockdown, or whether schools will close and we return to remote learning. Even after the election, one group is fearful of socialist takeover and transformation and the other is afraid that a dictator and his supporters will resort to anything to hold onto power. Neither is willing to let the other take hold, and both pit the other as mortal enemies. Businesses prepare for shutdown or riots, or both. Even the one thing that’s supposed to be safe, Thanksgiving with family, is labelled unsafe and a threat.

I have the same fears in front of me as the ones that destroyed me once. The threat of losing it all again, losing the ones I love and succumbing to isolation and loneliness. Feeling alone, feeling meaningless and purposeless. And seven years later, again, cancer.

How Times Have Changed

I didn’t sign up for this ride. None of us did. And I don’t know when it will end, or how. But the coaster is off, climbing up the chain to destiny I cannot see. Or, maybe it’s already launched down the hill and I didn’t even notice. I could be hanging upside-down with my brains in my feet for all I know. The point is, whether it’s feeling loneliness, adjusting to remote teaching again, dealing with this pandemic or political fallout for God knows how long, or scariest of all, witnessing cancer in my family again, well, I don’t know if I’m ready. Everything I loved now comes with fear. You fear fully reopening school to more than six kids a day when it’s what you deeply want. You fear the coming of a new year, as if this one wasn’t enough. You fear loneliness and abandonment as people, you included, retreat inside themselves. And when they teach you to fear being with your family, and part of you almost does, you know they’ve done their work well.

There are many, many people who live out of fear out there, and normally I don’t believe that I’m one of them, but when the world is as engulfed in it as it is you start to sink in with the others. They say that fear is overturned by hope, but even that is not always easy to find. The optimist I normally am, has at moments such as these very little. And I hate to say that, that I’ve lost my hope. But some nights, at least the night I wrote everything up to this point, it’s easy to feel hopeless.

At least, that’s how I felt when I started to write this on Saturday. That’s why it’s important not to write and publish something all in one night. And as I started to write this on Saturday, and as I finish on Wednesday, a lot has changed. For one, I’m under quarantine. The real kind. School is remote. Thanksgiving with the whole family is cancelled. Going over to check on my grandmother isn’t an option. The cotton swab has gone up the nose. The world shuts in on one house, me and my family, and the clock ticks.

But strangely, I’m not hopeless. There’s moments where you lose hope, yes. There’s moments where you know you’re not strong enough to do this on your own. Where you’re tired of going through new trials, of doing the unthinkable again. There’s moments where you feel alone. But surprisingly, now that I’m full fledged into it, I’m okay. I’m a little annoyed, a little depressed, a little guilty even. But overall, I’m okay.

Controlling Fear

So what is there for me to do? I could shrivel up in fear, accept my fate, and lay here in my bed for however long it takes for the sun to shine again. Fair warning though, that might take a lot longer than fourteen days. Besides, what happens if when quarantine ends and school returns to in person, things aren’t peachy keen? Instead, I’ll have to turn this into the thrilling amusement park ride I want it to be. I’ll check it off the bucket list. I’ll buy the t-shirt. I’ll control my fear. Besides, no one rides a roller coaster without a safety harness. And I’m not expected to now.

"So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." -Isaiah 41:10

As it would turn out, even in this craziest of Thanksgivings, there's still so much to be thankful for. Truth be told, I’m in a situation that’s lucky beyond so many others. I have my immediate family: my dad, step-mother, and sister, who care so much about me they willingly make this sacrifice with me so that I’m not alone. The rest of my family checking in on me and assuring me everything is going to be okay. Texting back and forth with my friends stuck in exactly the same dumb situation as I am. I have the assurance that I will go back and see my kids again, and that I still get to see and interact with them as we work remotely. Above all, I have God looking out for me, giving me peace and comfort. Without him, I would not have the strength to bear the unthinkable. With him, I have little to fear.

And when quarantine is over, when the threat of pandemic or political chaos is over, when cancer is dealt with, when the sun shines again… I’ll have shown that I made it through all the stronger for all I’ve been through. I’ll wear the t-shirt. I’ll take the selfie. I’ll make this roller coaster as fun as it can be. And even in the meantime, with every loop and drop and moment my brains fly into my feet, I’ll be thankful for the opportunity to ride this crazy and chaotic ride, and for the harness that holds me safe through it all.