When I was growing up there was a theme park on the coast of my hometown that my parents would bring me to frequently. My brother worked there when I was really small, and I remember my Mom taking me on the cave train ride once while he was driving it. It had just about everything that could make a kid happy, lots of rides, a big ol' arcade game, even laser tag. It only featured two rollercoasters, as it wasn't a huge park, but I adored both.

Being a kid in California during the 90s was pretty good on the theme park front. I went to Great America a couple times, the last time being an 8th grade field trip with some friends. My Mom and Dad even took me to Disneyland in 1997 before it became what it is today. We got there when it opened early in the morning and stayed until they closed at midnight. I rode Splash Mountain with my Dad, who nearly had a heart attack it sounded like. He said he definitely could never do anything like that again, and only did it because he loved Br'er Rabbit. Hey, you can't choose your nostalgia.

I took my high school girlfriend to the Boardwalk in my home town a couple times. We got sick on the teacups ride because I spun it too fast (because I don't do moderation well), and rode on the rollercoasters and the ferris wheel and generally had a perfect day.

If I'd known that wouldn't ride on a rollercoaster again for over twenty years, I'd have probably done it a few more times.

Growing up in California during the 90s, it seemed to me like every place would have a theme park, even if you had to drive for a little while to get to it. But as I discovered living in the desert for almost a decade, not every place valued whimsy. Being far from such places made me idealize them quite a bit, gave them a dreamlike quality in me. As society became more and more commercialized, it felt like my experiences as a child were somehow exotic and one of a kind, like a lost relic from an age past.

That kind of idealization of the things within you is a sort of bitter solipsism. To imagine that my childhood had something special in it that cannot be repeated because of changes wrought on the world since then, is an arrogance that has isolated me and deprived me of pursuing new wonders.

So a few summers ago, one of my dearest friends suggests that we go to Cedar Point on the coast of Lake Erie. She had gone a couple times and it looked like a lot of fun. Then the Pandemic happened. And my Dad died. And my partner left. My life was not a place with much whimsy in it then.

But as time erodes the wonders of childhood while placing them on pedestals too high to reach, it also softens the tragedies of memory into something more palatable, stories with further chapters that promise adventures that'll make you forget all about those rainy days.

Which is to say that this past summer, my friends and I finally said "to hell with it, let's go."

I was worried, incidentally. I hadn't been on a roller coaster in twenty years. Who knew if I still liked them, or if my body could still handle them? Would I find myself retching the day away in a filthy theme park outhouse, or might I instead be left cradling my fetal body back and forth in a bush while my dear friends attempted to coax me out with funnel cake? Or most horrifying of all: what if I just didn't think them fun anymore? Standing in line for an hour for two minutes of rushing around a steel track? Being among filthy tourists and smarmy teenagers? Overpriced food and aggressive seagulls?

Well it turned out to be my touch grass moment. The morning was a lovely drive through rural Ohio and finding myself at the shores of Lake Erie always relaxes me with how much it reminds me of the ocean. We went on a friday, so the lines were short, especially in the morning, and we got a very reasonably priced meal plan that kept us fed well all day long. Was it a commercial hellscape bent on monetizing every moment of my time? Surprisingly no. It was just a theme park same as it always was.

To say that hopping on a rollercoaster again was invigorating would be an understatement. Being away from them from so long while I experienced an adulthood of anxiety disorders perhaps may have expounded on the terror, but being able to feel such terror in (I assume) a safe environment helped to dispel many of my irrational anxities.

I find myself being reminded again and again that play is invaluable to the human spirit. I had often found myself discouraged from it, even though it's about the only thing that ever gave my life meaning. Part of me has to be fought every time I want to have fun, but experiences like a rollercoaster are so massive and visceral that it instantly knocks down the gates within me that stand between me and having a pretty good time.

We plan to go back next year, and I look forward to it. It's good to know there are still happy moments in happy places waiting for me.