To me, the realization has always felt like being on an amazing roller coaster. You’re screaming with joy beside your friends on this brilliant ride, full and alive without a care in the world as you embrace this fantastic thing that’s happening.

And at some point, maybe there’s a sharp turn that jounces you harder than you expect, or a sudden dip that lands you hard in the seat, and it makes you look up. And in doing so you notice, maybe for the first time, that the track you’re on stops

Not an end to the ride where you get off, a real one. A broken kind of end that you don’t make it out of. Maybe you do a double take as your mind tries to make sense of what that means,

once, twice,
a third time

You stare at the twisted bit of track and the impossible void it empties into and no matter how many times you blink, it doesn’t disappear. And you’re soaring all the while on this ride that’s never braking and your thoughts are racing and your stomach is mixing because this isn’t a nightmare, it’s not a dream, you’re awake. You’re strapped into this car that you don’t even remember getting into and there’s no slowing it down. There is no getting off, you can’t

it only ends when you do.

Your gut tightens at this notion. A hard ball of a thing in the pit of you and a kind of cold leaks out of it in waves that lick over your skin. You turn to your friends next to you and point, frantic, at the ending bit of track. Don’t they see it too? They look over, their eyes small with sympathy. Everything is so loud but you manage to hear them say that you should still put your arms up. That it’s no reason not to enjoy the ride