Going to The Park.

I remember, aged around 11 or 12, going to the neighborhood park right across my yard, usually empty. It wasn’t abandoned per se, but it was in a slight condition of disrepair. Kids would come, but it was a park that you could easily find time to go to by yourself. Sometimes, I’d go and swing alone, just going as high as I could, higher and higher, until I got so high it would do the weird thing when you stop at the high point before you go back down where it buckles a bit and you lift off of the swing for a second. That was my favorite part. Back then I had what I would now describe as a lion’s mane head full of hair, and it would whip back and forth, back and forth as I swung.

There was this lady that would come to the park sometimes. I called her the Swing Lady. She would come to swing by herself too, just like me. Even though I never talked to her, I felt a sort of connection with her. It was probably only on my end. I was pretty lonely. But I do wonder what she thought about me. I would walk out to the park and she’d be there, swinging away, the wires of her earbuds whipping back and forth like my hair. I would sit in a swing one away from her, and just start. We were swinging, together but separate. As I swung next to her I would make up stories in my head about who she was and why she was there all alone in a dinky little park as a grown woman. It gave me something to think about while I swung all alone. I would anticipate her being there when I went outside, and was disappointed the times she wasn’t. Her presence made me feel less lonely. I wasn’t the only one there alone. We were both alone together.

I told my dad about the Swing Lady. My dad had found out about her story one day as he was picking up trash some bratty kids left behind at the park. They had a conversation. He found out that she was very athletic, but had been injured. Coming to the park to swing was her way of getting outside and doing something, just to move a little bit and to not feel cooped up. He told me about it, thinking it interesting. I wish that that conversation had never happened.

Little by little, she showed up less and less. She was recovering from her injury. She didn’t see the need to spend time at the park anymore. I was alone again. After that, I still swung high sometimes, but I remember days when I’d go out there and just slowly rock back and forth in the swing as it squeezed my legs uncomfortably together, my feet dragging the mulch to expose the dirt underneath. I would always be barefoot. The mulch wouldn’t bother me too much, but one day a particularly sharp piece jabbed into my foot. My thighs ached from the sides of the rubber swing and my foot was stinging from my splinter.

I eventually stopped swinging regularly. It wasn’t as fun anymore. Swinging was just another thing that reminded me of how bad I felt. Just another thing that gave me that aching feeling in my chest. I started laying on my back in the grass, eyes closed to block out the sun stabbing into my eyes. I would sit there for hours sometimes. Grass tickling my feet, my bare summer legs, my arms, my upturned palms, my ears, my face. I wouldn’t do anything except breathe, and shift around occasionally, and feel the sun, and think. I thought too much. I still think too much. Those times were probably what started my habit of thinking too much. At first laying there was peaceful. Eventually my thoughts started nagging at me. Eventually the itchy grass and the rashes it created started nagging at me. Eventually some neighborhood kids asking “what are you doing” in their whiny, bemused voices were nagging at me. I stopped doing it after that. I think I stopped coming outside as often after that. I started to stay in my room more with the door shut. I started to lay on my bed, eyes closed, thinking, for hours at a time. Little by little, I showed up less and less. I didn’t see the need to spend time at the park anymore.