So, so you think you can tell heaven from hell? blue skies from pain? can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?

[Wish You Were Here-Pink Floyd]

i think life operates on the same principle as a roller coaster. no, not that cliched "it has its up and downs" line, though its true i guess. but thats not exactly what im talking about.

the first hill on a roller coaster is the highest itll ever go. the other peaks are tall too, and thrilling all the same, but the first one is the tallest, the best. the momentum gained from the first hill is what carries the coaster over the rest of the track. as it travels, friction and drag and resistance plague the coaster, stealing the kinetic energy established to carry it onward.

you spend all your childhood years building up to it. children are really elastic, they bounce back quickly after a setback. they recover quickly because they have no reason not to. sometime early on you hit your peak of maximum everything. maximum happiness, maximum luck, maximum my-life-is-fucking-awsomeness. but once its over, its over. you can look forward to the next hill, but as they say, its all downhill from here. as you get older, it gets harder to recover from all the shit life throws at you. life drags you down, and eventually you dont get back up the way you did before.