I love, love roller coasters. I don’t care if they’re fast, slow, wooden, metal, upside-down, crazy steep, stand up, legs dangling, whatever, I will go on any ride at least once. There’s this familiar routine that happens while waiting in line for the ride, one I know to a science following years of chasing that adrenaline high. First you’re bouncing with anticipation as you make your way closer to the gate, counting the groups ahead and trying to figure out how long it’ll be until you’re up. Then right before you’re seated, the bouncing turns from a general excited into an anxious excited, like you know it’s really about to happen, until finally you’re seated and the anxious energy starts turning into adrenaline coursing through your whole body, a rush of all types of feelings before you’ve even left the platform.

There’s the click, click, click of the ride as it makes its way higher and higher up the first big drop, and all of a sudden you’re shaking from everything, the excitement, the anticipation, the adrenaline; the ride hasn’t even really taken off yet and you’re already flushed with crazy energy, sitting still yet surrounded by movement. This is the part I always remember in a good ride: the way it feels in that brief moment of limbo before plunging into the main event.

In a moment yesterday I experienced the waiting in line, the bouncing anxiety to receive something I knew was coming, the drop in my stomach when I heard the ping of my inbox. I buckled up for the click, click, click of walking to have a conversation I’d been practicing for weeks, and then with just a few words, the cart tipped over the peak of the hill and I flew, headfirst, laughing as the wind danced next to me, into the end of an era and the beginning of a great unknown.

None of that makes any sense, I realize. But fear not: all will be explained in due time, friends. In the meantime, let’s just say next week holds a lot of big milestones in this Chronicle.