A Day Well Spent Making Memories
at Hershey Park
There’s a peculiar joy in terror, a paradoxical pleasure in the pit of fear that forms in my stomach. I’ve never been one for the frivolous traps that are amusement parks - the lines snaking endlessly, the sugary treats, the mascots with their frozen smiles. Don’t ask me to go to Disney. No, what draws me is something more primal, more visceral.
It’s hearing the rhythmic clack-clack-clack of the chain taking you ever so slowly to the top. Making you second guess why you chose this ride in the first place. Then the moment when the coaster crests the hill, that breathless instant where time seems to lag for just a second too long. My back is pressed against the unforgiving seat, eyes locked on an endless expanse of blue sky. Then, the plunge. My heart leaps into my throat, my stomach seems to float, untethered from my body. It’s terrifying and exhilarating all at once.
After terrorizing our children with the Super Dooper Looper and then the Wild Mouse and the Lightning Racer coasters they had had enough. My eight-year-old was holding his fear behind a fake smile but with each new line I could tell he was about to crack. Before I could get him to board the Sidewinder (a backwards coaster, my favorite) his big brown eyes met mine and pleaded to stay on the ground for the rest of the rides.
As we strolled throughout the remaining rides at the park - hitting up the bumper cars, antique cars, swings, and merry mixers, I questioned why I preferred the moments of controlled panic instead? Perhaps it’s a way to feel intensely in the world. To be reminded that I’m still here, still breathing, still capable of being surprised by life. Or perhaps it’s simpler than that - a childlike glee in defying gravity, in briefly escaping the constraints of my everyday.
Whatever the reason, I find myself drawn back, time and again, to the top. To that instant where fear and excitement blend into a heady cocktail of adrenaline. Where there is no control. It’s in these moments, heart pounding and blood rushing, that I feel most alive, most present, most human.
