The Kelsey's

Most summers we find a way to get out to Six Flags. I tried to do something with each child individually over the summer, but Hannah and Joshua both liked Six Flags enough that we just combined their activities.

This summer a Six Flags visit wasn’t looking too likely because of budgets and time crunches. But Hannah’s insistence that this was her “summer of freedom” before heading off to Academy (so named because all future summers might include a job, and jobs = slavery I guess??) lead to pleading and finally I said that at some point this summer we would go.

We did go. It was August 7th. We had a fun time, and Hannah brought her friend Maddie along so we were an even number. Who wants to go to an amusement park with an odd rider for every coaster? You need an even number.

There was one thing of significance that I want to record here because it has a greater relevance to life and moving on into adulthood. We all rode the Superman ride. (What? So what!)

Well, the Kelsey Kids are known (by me) as being a little fearful of trying new things. I had only been on the Superman once before, and it was scary for me. I’m afraid of heights, but I wanted to try it. The kids sat below and prayed for me to live. It was a nice ride, it’s always enjoyable to see your life flash before your eyes. It’s not an action flick, but it wasn’t a tragedy either.

Anyway, we started talking about going on it. I made sure they knew I was scared riding it last time. But Maddie was game. Joshua then decided he would do it (he did have cold feet later, but he overcame). Hannah was reticent. Eventually she decided to go for it. She claims we talked her into it. But it was clearly her choice.

We were going to ride some other rides first, but as we walked by I suggested we strike while the iron was hot. So we got in line. The anxiety boiled up and when we were finally seated we were at the point of “what were we thinking?” Hannah was practically in tears. The ride operator just smiled and held back a giggle as she said “Have fun!” in a taunting voice.

But it was over pretty quick – and no deaths occurred on that 45 second ride (41 of those seconds was going up).

But the lesson was that you can, indeed, face your fears. What we thought was going to be terrifying wasn’t so bad really. Some might even call it fun – well, some might.

Just remembering that we “rode the Superman”, we stepped up and took action and survived it, can be an encouragement when facing new experiences that we aren’t quite sure about.

The next week Hannah headed off to boarding school. We would often say, “How hard can it be? You did ride the Superman after all…”