Roller Coaster Enthusiast

I actually don’t think I’d refer to myself as a roller coaster enthusiast, because I don’t go to many different amusement parks. However I do go to my local amusement park about twice a month. It’s a two hour drive and Carl and I have such a good time. We’ve steamrolled the process and at the end of the day we’re always surprised at how many activities we were able to get done. Also on super duper hot days, we flee the park during the hottest part of the day and go hang out at the water park next door, it’s delightful :)

Yesterday we went to the park with a group of people. Including Carl and I there were 8 of us. We originally were going to go just the two of us, as usual, but because we were going on a Sunday I wanted to invite my friend Mitch. We usually go on Saturdays but Mitch is a bartender and he works Saturdays and can’t usually come with us. Then Mitch and his partner ended up bringing more friends, and there ended up being 8 people including Carl and I.

Carl is a creature of habit. He loves his routines and he hates change. I feel like most of us dislike change but not like Carl does. He doesn’t ever really want to go to the park with anyone besides the two of us. But it’s a theme park and he knows it would be silly for us to be like, “No we’re going by ourselves bye”. He also understands that some of our friends and family also love The Park because hello – amusement parks are awesome. Still though, I know if it were up to Carl he’d have it just be the two of us every time. Personally I feel pretty neutral about it. If it were up to me we’d go just the two of us about half the time. There are pros and cons to either situation.

Anyway, for that reason Mitch and I were both concerned that this large of a group would stress Carl out, so we tried to minimize dilly dallying and such. I also told Carl when we first got there that if he wanted to branch away from the group at any point and ride some rides just the two of us to just say the word. He appreciated that, but somewhat surprisingly we didn’t have to! There were a few times toward the beginning of the day that Carl got stressed and grouchy – but those were mostly external factors and not because of the group. We also did end up breaking into smaller groups a couple of times throughout the day, which was nice.

Overall we had a great day and I was pleasantly surprised. Sometimes The Park can be a bit of a shitshow at the beginning of the season, with the staff being freshly trained and still getting into the groove and such. Also the weather was initially supposed to be kinda crappy, but it ended up being sunny all day! And Carl had a great day just like I’d hoped. He loves The Park so much.

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I feel like as I’ve grown up I’ve come to accept that change is part of life and even though I don’t love it, it’s inevitable. Nothing ever truly stays the same. Carl has been exceptionally privileged in the sense that he’s lived in this same city his entire life, and has had the same group of friends since he was 12. He still gets upset when his Christmas Morning Routine is messed with and it doesn’t work out exactly as it always has. This man is 33 years old and will throw a fit if he doesn’t get to see his family on Thanksgiving – even though his family all live in this city and he sees them very regularly.

And listen, I know that’s not a great take. I know I seem like an asshole right now. Of course he wants to see his family on Thanksgiving and I understand that. It’s just a little frustrating for me because my family lives all over the damn country, and I only get to see them on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and our annual family camping trip we take every summer. Thanksgiving was 6 months ago and I swear I’m over it at this point, but at the time I was frustrated. I wanted to spend as much time as possible with my brothers and my niece and nephew and my cousins who live in other states. Instead of getting to my Thanksgiving at 2pm when everyone else got there, we didn’t get there until 5:30 because we had to stop at Carl’s aunt’s house, to spend half an hour with a bunch of people that we see all the time.

Part of this is jealousy. I fucking wish that my brothers and the rest of my family lived nearby. God I wish I didn’t have to drive 3 hours to see my niece and nephew. To me it feels like I had to Grow Up when I was 18 and moved to a different city for college, and my brothers moved to different cities also. I just can’t imagine expecting to have the same Thanksgiving or Christmas routine that I had as a child, that seems naive to me. Sometimes I just want to tell him that we are adults now and things change and your holiday traditions will always change over time and he should be grateful that it’s taken this long for his to change.

Obviously I would never say that to him that would be messed up. And at my core I don’t even mean that so if I were to say something I know I’d regret it immediately. And I think that if my brothers and I hadn’t scattered after high school and we all still lived in the same place, I’m sure I would feel just like Carl does. Also it’s not fair to me to say that he’ll ‘throw a fit’ when his plans get changed – that’s an exaggeration. He just gets a bit upset.

None of this is even important or relevant I’ve gone on a weird tangent here. I guess I just wanted to vent that because it’s something I’d never say out loud.