Now..at a quieter and more settled chapter of my life, I sometimes find myself asking, half playfully, half sincerely,“May I step off the ride?"
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They say life is like a rollercoaster-unpredictable, thrilling, occasionally terrifying. It sounds like a cliché until you’ve felt the drop in your own chest….
My life in has moved in curves and slopes, rising and falling like one of those fortune-teller charts drawn across a page — a thin line predicting love, success, loss, triumph, sorrow. At the time, I listened with half believed. Years later, I look back and realize that some of those steep descents and surprising climbs did, in fact, arrive right on predicted time & some regrets didn’t prepared.
There were years when I treated life with a kind of stern seriousness, especially during this middle ages- falling seasons. When everything felt like it was plunging — plans, confidence, certainty. I would wait for the upward climb the way a rider waits for the slow mechanical pull back to the sky. That hopeful clicking sound. That promise that gravity is not the final destination.
And without fail, the climb would come. It always does.
The strange mercy of life is that no drop lasts forever. The track curves. The speed shifts. The view changes. What once felt unbearable becomes a story you survived.
Now, at a quieter and more settled chapter of my life, I sometimes find myself asking, half playfully, half sincerely, “May I step off the ride?” But the truth is simpler and more profound: we do not step off. We remain. We participate. We endure the loops and we savor the heights.
There have been storms — not theatrical ones, but deeply personal ones. Seasons of grief. Waves of panic that rose without warning. Days when I did not feel like the heroine of a triumphant narrative, but rather a solitary character trying to remember her lines.
In those moments, I reached outward. I read books that steadied my breathing. I copied down quotes that felt like lanterns in dim hallways. I spoke to friends, to mentors, to anyone who could remind me that I was not alone in the descent. Their words did not erase the storm, but they anchored me to the present.
Recently, when another shadow returned — heavier, more insistent — I chose something different. I did not fight the ride. I paused. I slowed my pace. I walked among trees. I allowed silence to teach me what noise never could. That is when I discovered a quiet truth: my mindset is not my enemy. It is my companion. Mindfulness is not a trend. It is a lifeline.
The rollercoaster has not disappeared. It still dips and swerves. But I hold the bar differently now. I breathe through the falls. I trust the mechanics of resilience. I know that even when the track disappears beneath me, it curves forward somewhere beyond my sight.
If you find yourself mid-descent — heart racing, hands gripping tightly — I want you to know this: the drop is not the end of your story. It is a chapter. And chapters turn.
You will rise again. The view will change again.
And one day, you will look back at this stretch of track and realize — you were stronger than you knew.
Life may be a rollercoaster. But you, my dear, are learning how to ride it. 