Thrill-seeking, it's getting harder

Maybe it's worth it though, to feel the world again.

Apr 11, 2025

The Verzasca dam (above) in Ticino, Switzerland, is the same spot where the legendary opening scene from James Bond’s 1997’s Goldeneye was filmed. The bungee jump has since changed ownership, but is still open today.

When I was 22, I bungee-jumped off a dam in Switzerland. I’m not sure what made me decide to jump off the largest (at the time) bungee jump in the world. Being scared of heights is one thing, falling 220 meters alongside a wall of concrete should be terrifying. It was also really expensive and took weeks of bar tips to save up for it. Against those factors, I didn’t flip-flop. I heard about it from my boyfriend at the time (hi, Ian), knew my friends were going to do it, and joined in. We piled in our buddy’s car and drove over to the dam, (they were living in Verbier at the time).

After the safety briefing, a friendly woman strapped me in. The only time I paused, was after that, jangling with caribeaners and rope. As per the advice of my friends who had done it before, I avoided looking down until the last moments. But, it was a lot windier than I thought it would be. I shivered, and peeked out, frozen. Our friend Alan saw, and passed the instructor me his XXXL black hoodie with gold chains printed all over it. Once I tucked into it, and she re-strapped me in, I felt better, comfortable, ready. I waved to the camera, and, well, jumped. It’s was everything you imagine it might be. Absolute, pure thrill.

Looking back to my late teens and early twenties, I’m starting to see that I chased that feeling a lot. I am slightly in awe of how many times I put my bones in a situation that risked their breaking. My journals are filled with rejections of anything that was cozy, suburban, or safe. I wanted to be dropped in the middle of mountains, ride motorcycles, and turn my nose up the things that my parents had: mortgages, marriage, kids.

But forget the bungee jumps and skydiving, I found ways to incorporate thrill in daily life too. In Toronto, I commuted to the bars and concert venues I worked at, atop a rickety bike. Narrowly missing car doors and metal streetcar tracks, I wove through the city blaring music on my headphones. It sounds like a reckless way to move through the world (and it was), but I never felt more alive than those evenings biking along Queen Street West, not watching the world go by, but moving through it. Even though it was just an old shit bicycle, I thought myself superior to the chumps inside their fancy cars. I thought of my favorite passage from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance:

“In a car you're always in a compartment, and because you're used to it you don't realize that through that car window everything you see is just more TV. You're a passive observer and it is all moving by you boringly in a frame. On a cycle the frame is gone. You're completely in contact with it all. You're in the scene, not just watching it anymore, and the sense of presence is overwhelming". - Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Then there was the rush of doing things I should not have been doing. My friends and I spent a few weeks convinced stealing street signs was a way to rebel against “the man.” Whatever that meant. We clumsily leaned ladders against poles at two or three in the morning and cranked off the rusted bolts. The giant metal octagons and rectangles were so much larger in the trunks of our cars. After an exposé ran in our local paper that outlined how expensive they were to replace, and how much trouble we’d be in if we were caught, we did stop.

My favorite type of rush was sneaking into our rich neighbor’s backyards. Sometimes just lying on grass that felt different, and lush, could be the entire goal of the night. We rarely carried cellphones, so were often pulled into pools with our clothes on. A moment of pure joy would be replaced with terror as we woke the sleeping parents. We splashed our way out, ran from the yards suddenly lit up with lights. Sometimes a livid father in a robe chased us into the dark.

There were less illegal ways to find this feeling of course. We pierced our eyebrows, noses, cheeks, and got our first tattoos. One time, I saw my friend lighting safety pins on fire and then proceeded to pierce the skin between his knuckles. I joined him without hesitation, surprised how well pins slid into that first layer of skin without bleeding.

And touching there was so much more touching. When you’re young, fueled by hormones, or excess energy, or zero fear, our bodies also impacted one another. Strangers at concerts and dance clubs. We held our friends’ hands, or walked with arms linked. We’d shoulder bump and rustle hair when we’d egg one another on. We were tackled into pools, on lawns, into mosh pits. Even just lying on friends couches watching tv, our heads, legs, and limbs draped over one another. I even see this with my toddler and five year old. Personal space is taught, and one day touching other people becomes taboo, and eventually cause for divorce (if you take it too far that is).

Last week, I was standing in line at Whole Foods, thinking about our next mortgage payment, and I recalled on that gut drop I had at the bungee jump. I almost exclaimed aloud at the feeling and I couldn’t help grinning. “Prime member?” the cashier asked. My thumb was already holding out the code on my iPhone.

I climbed into in my new-ish SUV after checking out and waited for the heated seat to kick in. I thought about the last time I did something truly terrifying. To be sure, giving birth is right up there, but there’s also something comforting about becoming a mother too. (I’ll have to save that tangent for another Substack).

But, after seeing some terrible accidents, motorcycles scare me now. Jumping off a stage requires a lot more coordination these days, and my not-so-svelte body needs assurance I won’t break anything. After all, I have kids to put to bed and an ego to protect. Breaking the law as an adult is not nearly as frivolous or fun. The idea of leaving a restaurant with crushed cheerios and toddler detritus feels appalling to me now, I can’t believe I used to smash beer bottles when I was done drinking them. I still listen to a lot of the music I did when I was a teen, but I also love a good medieval tavern playlist. I love our sweet little home in Maine and take care in making it a nest for us to read and lounge in. When cars drive by fast, or teenagers are loud on our road after midnight, I yell at them. We don’t have a pool, but if I saw five kids smoking and drinking in my backyard I would chase after them in my terry cloth robe too. So, yeah, spoiler alert: my life has become the pinnacle of cozy, suburban, and safe.

As we age, there is a softening, an acceptance of a status quiet. Rules are made, and adhered to without much discussion. Many of these regulations make sense to me, I want to live as many years as I can. I also want to protect and be kind to other people. But, in pursuing this way of life, have we gone too far? Coupled with the digital age, this frictionless life is also becoming more isolated.

So, does that mean that adulthood is softer? Calmer? Even if we’ve stopped going to raves and dancing until dawn, the world has continued to be brutal. Inflicting its scars on us without permission. Since I rounded thirty, I saw people I love die. I have seen heart-punching poverty and irreversible climate devastation. Still, we walk around stiffly, hoping a one-hour yoga class, a massage, or a sweet therapy session, will release our tension. I feel like the world after childhood is one giant library, and we’re told to be to shhh. I can’t help but feel like I was better adjusted as a rebellious asshole, seventeen-year-old than I am now.

I’m not alone—I don’t think. Why are the most talked-about and popular films and tv shoes almost always include infidelity or unrequited love? Babygirl, The Affair, Challengers, White Lotus. Or sweeping action, fantasy, or super-hero tales with the actors getting punched, stabbed, and shot. I’m finding it more unsettling how much gore we endure, how many lovers we peep on, and how many storylines we get lost in, only to pause, grab something from the fridge, and tuck back into the couch.

I was never into sports, but I wonder how much people who embrace impact daily are less susceptible to things like anxiety and depression. I wonder if the person who plays recreational hockey, and checks another person skating at their top speed, is a lot more relaxed putting their kids to bed than let’s say, a parent who’s been typing at her desk for eight hours straight with a clenched jaw. So much gets absorbed in our psyche’s daily: feelings of inadequacy, rejection, self-esteem, failure, sadness at the overall state of the world – and we have nowhere to put it, punch it, kiss it.

“But maybe the road split between: a life spent longing vs. a life that was continually surprising.” - Miranda July, All Fours.

July’s novel focuses more on the erotic side of thrill, but regardless the chase is the same sort of path. Butterflies. The gut drop. OK, maybe not the safety pins in my knuckles, but whatever I find myself wanting, it’s at a cost.

I don’t know if I have it in me to bungee jump again. I would like to try boxing. If anyone know's anyone who teaches the drums, smashing something that was designed to be hit, feels more productive than stealing street signs at this age. Surfing in Maine’s ocean lends an exhilaration pretty close to sneaking into someone’s backyard (since most of this damn coast is someone’s yard anyway). Public speaking makes my heart rate spike, so I’ll try to keep doing that. I’m also a liberal-ish, Chinese-Canadian woman living in a very white state, with nothing in her pocket but a green card. That’s been feeling pretty thrilling lately.

I love the shaky, lo-res video Ian took of me jumping that day. Re-watching it, I especially notice Alan’s sweatshirt that swallowed up my small shaking body. It was a comfort, both the sweater itself, and knowing they were all there egging me on with excitement. The moment tugs on me harder now, knowing that Alan is gone. I wish I had another opportunity to tell him that very small act of thoughtfulness gave me the almost-literal push to do it. We never know how our actions, big or small, might impact our paths in life. Maybe I’ll start there, and let the living know they are loved. That’s the greatest thrill of all anyway, to connect, or at least try to, in this society that wants so badly to pull us apart.

xo,
Coco.