“I’m not scared!”, I desperately exclaimed. 

“Then why won’t you do it?, Is it too childish for you?”, my dad taunted.

It was early in the morning on a sunny day at Seaworld in San Diego. It was really early in the morning because for some reason the most important thing to my dad was getting there before every single person that is coming that day. I had no idea what was actually in the park. I thought I was just going interact with the animals. I had no idea it would be a day that I would conquer one of my biggest fears. I didn’t know that I would be riding the “Manta”.  I was always scared of trying new things. I never wanted to do anything unless I was forced to or got payed for doing it. Everyone in my family always pestered to get me to try to do something about conquering my fears. And that day I had to make the choice of living in fear for the rest of my life, or trying to see if I could actually find joy in what I called “risking my life”. I knew a lot of people did it but I always pondered on how I could die on one of them.

When we walked through brown gates at the entrance of the park, and the first thing I saw was a sign that said, “Dolphins come to watch and touch”. I was really excited because I was actually going to touch a dolphin. But since my sister is older than me she had to put me down by bragging about her experience swimming with the dolphins. After her ten minute bragging spree we finally walked towards the dolphins. We walked on for about 5 minutes, lost because the sign didn’t accurately point to where the dolphins were so we went the wrong way. But we finally saw the dolphins with another sight in the background, the young, blonde trainer flaunting the dolphin in front of the thirty person crowd. Holding it up to them and letting them glide their hands on its skin. The next move was something that changed my life, there was a tall structure waiting, and calling for me.

With the weird blue-orange tint I saw a huge sign with the word “Manta”. Standing tall behind was a towering ride with faded blue tracks telling me to jump into the manta ray shaped cart. I tried to ignore the fact that it was standing behind me maniacally smirking waiting for the question to come up. After I heard giggling and whispering behind me I speed walked to the the huge pool with the beautiful gray dolphins sitting in the tamer’s small hands partially being covered by her wetsuit. After touching the rubbery dolphin and seeing the bottom row of it’s teeth finally the question came up, “Hey, come on let’s go ride that roller coaster”.

My heart pounded just thinking about getting in the cart. But I couldn’t stand the constant nagging from my dad and sister. Every couple of minutes while we were walking I was bugged and annoyed about riding the roller coaster. I finally gave up and I got onto the creaky wood stairs leading up to the carts. It was summer vacation and there were tons of people so we had to sit in one hundred degree weather just to do something I loathed. After letting the sun cook us we finally got in the blue cart with red seats that had a leathery texture to them and waited for what I thought was my demise. My heart felt like it was going to explode, I could feel the beating in my head and finally we strapped in, I was shaking horribly and finally the countdown. My sister was behind me and it was us, the cart, and the track. I couldn’t go back now, it was time to get over this stupid fear.

“Hey stop shaking it isn’t that bad, we can get off if you want to,” my dad whispered
“I know but it is just something that I have to do,” I nervously said as I sat up in my seat.
“Okay”

Finally the countdown hit one and time stopped, and quickly the cart jolted forward and my stomach dropped. It was moving. I could hear the screeching and sounds coming out from under us. We went through the twists and turns of the ride. The drops into a low crevice around the ride. I could pick out some people standing and watching as my face was being thrown back by a constant flurry of wind. All I could hear were fake screams from my dad trying to act like he was as scared as I was, but as the ride actually started getting faster the fake, sarcastic screams turned into shrieks of horror like a woman was getting murdered behind me. We got off of the ride, my hair looked like I was a cartoon character. The butterflies in my stomach seemed to have faded and the adrenaline was still pumping through my veins just like it was the roller coaster I was on. I actually felt joy and I wasn’t scared anymore, I didn’t die; we didn’t fall off of the tracks; we just had a great time.

This was an important moment in my life because it showed me I didn’t have to be scared of everything. I have to think about the positives not just how I could get injured. I feel that this is actually one of the most important times in my life because it didn’t just help me get over the roller coaster fear, it started to help me think positive and thinks of how things can go in my favor. I actually have been good with heights and other types of rides where there is a one-in-a million shot at it going wrong. Other people can learn from this by just taking one risk and maybe they will be able to do anything they want.