My Born Ultimatum...

My latest bout with motion sickness, reared it's ugly head tonight - at the movie theater of all places. DH and I went to see Bourne Ultimatum. We had heard rave reviews - and while we were slow in getting to see it - it really was good. The only problem was the director seemed to have filmed the entire thing with a super 8 handheld movie camera. Talk about jiggle factor. I knew the movie would be high on action. But it seemed even the non-action parts of the show were in action - because the dang camera man was sitting on Matt Damon's shoulder (like an evil twin would).

Ever since I was a little girl, I've had issues with motion sickness. Maybe I was born with it - or perhaps I was just dropped a lot as a baby (insert joke here). I remember being really young at a park and swinging so high on the swings - and getting so sick - that I finally jumped off to save myself (landed pretty hard on some dirt too, if I recall).

You can imagine if park swings did that to me - how Lagoon (aka overpriced carnival) affected my livelihood. I tried to ride on those herky, jerky rides - to no avail. I'll admit it -- I was in denial in those early years. It just didn't seem natural for a kid to hate rides! But, hate them I did. Oh sure, I'd still go on a few - but that was just to save face and to not be judged by the other kids.

Over the years, rides, swings and merry go rounds - became my arch nemesis'. The Space scrambler: struck such fear in me that I've tried to block it from my memory. Tilt-a-whirl - can you say tilt-a-hurl? Colossus - spinning around upside down in circles should be against the law. And let's just say - there was nothing merry about those horses going up and down & spinning in a circle on the Carousel ride.

As I got older, it didn't get any better. In middle school, our playground consisted of a big field, a merry-go-round and a few four square grids. The boys would get on the merry-go-round and see who could stay on the longest without throwing up. Now, knowing of my motion weakness - I steered clear of this activity. Until that fateful day. My girlfriends & I were looking for a place to sit and visit. Oddly enough, the merry-go-round had been abandoned by the crazy 8th grade boys - nary a one in sight. With not much brain power working on our side, we (about 6 of us) congregated on the merry-go-round to sit and chat.

Enter stage left - wild screaming boys, running towards the innocent (naive) girls who had no clue of the dirty deed that was about to occur. Before we could even think about moving, the spinning began. Faster and faster--until I knew it was fight or flight. I chose flight--and jumped from the madly spinning wheel - onto the slippery gravelly blacktop. I was in the nurses office the rest of the day getting gravel dug out of my hands, knees and elbows.

As an adult, it has been much easier for me to avoid rides, swings and merry-go-rounds. Unless I'm tricked. Mission Space at Epcot would be one of those cruel tricks. On our first trip to Disneyworld, one of the first things we did was head to Epcot and hop aboard mission space. The signs said, "May cause motion sickness". "May" was an understatement. There was no abort button on that mission - so I had to use positive self-talk to get me through it, "Go to a happy place" I said over and over in my head. I was miserably sick the rest of the day.

On our next visit to Disneyworld, again I was tricked. My, then 7 year old, daughter convinced me that the Tower of Terror wasn't bad at all. She had gone on it before - and said - "Mom, if I can do it so can you." I bought into that diatribe. And headed home nauseated, dizzy - vowing never to trust the sweet eyes of my daughter again. Even Soarin' - a simulated hang-glider ride over California nauseated me. I ended up closing my eyes over most of the ocean, orange trees and even the Golden Gate Bridge.

Needless to say, I have become the official "stuff holder" (i.e. water bottles, camera, purses, hats, sunglasses etc) at amusement parks. It seems to work well for me - and the bonus is no more lost stuff on the upside down, twirly hurly roller-coasters.

As for the movies? For Matt Damon, I guess, that's just a sacrifice I'm willing to make.