Nostalgia always hits heavy at parks.
Sitting on a swing with its partner gently swaying besides us, my thoughts flying just as gently… It’s a time I tend to do some of my best thinking and daydreaming and remembering.
They’re that time of life when seconds slow and your heartbeat’s louder than a clock’s hands.
When I was little, maybe even a little older – even up until the 8th Grade, I’d to climb onto the jumgle gyms, hang at the top of monkey bars, or stand at the top of a slide looking out at the horizon right before sliding down and think about how I was at the top of the world.
It used to be a place where all the little kids would scream and run and there would be energy.
As I got older, the swings became my best friends. The swings became my chance to breathe. Because in the life we live, it’s difficult to catch a moment to actually appreciate the beauty and happiness life has to offer. Or to face our emotional hardships, the stress, and genuinely deal with it instead of simply packing it into a storage container in our head meant to be locked away and never opened again. Actually, suitcases might be a better metaphor. Baggage, right?
Why is this suddenly important to write about?
Well, as I said, nostalgia hits hard when I spend time at the park. I was just walking and I suddenly realized how much I’d packed up over the years. So when my spirals hit it’s more than the now – it’s the then that’s being brought to the surface.
I also realized with the clarity I get from those seconds I’m able to use to breathe and think, I like my spirals. Because yes, old issues of the past tend to be unlocked, but the new issues tend to be resolved simoultaneously.
The other day – well, actually, the other week, a good friend of mine told me he probably has some “deep rooted psychological issue” to work through. It struck me, not then, but later, that we all have deep rooted psychological issues to work through. Me included.
And that’s what causes the spirals, however mild or harsh.
I mean they do tell us to talk to someone. Of course, they mean a friend, teacher, or therapist – not the World Wide Web. But hey, each to our own, right…
Some people go to therapy, some people drink and do drugs, some people take up extreme sports to expend their anger, some people learn to play the guitar or paint to use their emotions as inspiration. Me? I like to swing, think, and write.
