In eight grade, my Science class went on a trip to Busch Gardens to learn about physics. We were told that we had to go on all of the different kinds of roller coasters and figure out the different forces we experienced from them. I had been to amusement parks before but never ridden any of the rides, only this time was going to be different.


I was eager and apprehensive at the same time for the trip. I was going to try something I’d never done before. Ride an industrial-sized rollercoaster.


The most anticipated ride of the field trip was Sheikra. Everyone wanted to go on Sheikra, so that ended up being the first rollercoaster of my life. It was the biggest and scariest ride at the park and had a huge drop right at the beginning. The drop was what I was most afraid of. I had always hated the feeling of falling and loosing my stomach but my friends told me I should try the ride. I was so scared; they told me that if I didn’t do it now, then I would never be able to come over my fear of rollercoasters.



“Come on!” nate said, “Its not that scary.”



That’s not what I thought, I thought that the ride was going to be awful and miserable and that I wouldn’t be able to wait to get off. I didn’t want to go on the ride at all.



We were waiting in line for the next car to arrive and that’s when I started to get really nervous. I felt like I had to go on the ride. My body jittery and I felt hyper and didn’t know what to expect. All my friends were there so felt I compelled to go on the ride. I wanted to. The sun had only slightly risen and it was still early in the morning so everyone was cold, but I was sweating. The first roller coaster of my life would turn out to be one of the biggest in Busch gardens, and I was about to get on. I saw people all around me who were excited that they were going to ride sheikra, but not me. I was one of the few people who were scared to go on this crazy ride. There wasn’t the slightest bit of excitement in me at all. All there was, was fear.


The car arrived at the line and it was our group’s turn to get on. The seats were made out of hard rubber and the harness, made of metal. It came down over our heads and locked us into our seats. There was no turning back now. The first roller coaster of my life was about to begin. I heard a loud click and the car started moving. It slowly rolled around started ascending up the hill it was going to drop us from. There was a repetitive clicking as we went up that made me even more nervous. At the top it felt like you could see the whole world. It was a little cloudy but the view was still amazing. The ride did another little turn and I was looking straight down the vertical rails of the tracks of the roller coaster. My heart was pounding. The car was being hung over the edge of the tracks and then the car was let go and we fell straight down. I let out a scream of excitement as we zipped down the tracks of the ride. We fell for about three seconds until we evened out. I was so excited, we were going so fast and everything happened so quickly. The ride carried on with a few more drops and loops and other things and at the end of the ride I felt accomplished.

***

I was scared to go on the ride but I ended up doing it. I had stepped out of my comfort zone to try something new and now I was comfortable with roller coasters. Every time you step out of your comfort zone it expands just a little bit and I did that. I tried something new that I didn’t want to do and now I was comfortable with it. Going on that ride showed me that some things that I think are scary aren’t even that bad. You just think they are. Having an experience like that can really change your life. You think that some things are a lot worse than they actually are, but then you try them and realize that they really aren’t that bad. If you haven’t ever tried something you can’t have an opinion about it. If you’ve never done it or never tried it you don’t know what its actually like. Once you try it you know what its like, and you can either love it or hate it just as long as you’ve tried it.