Even at the staggering height of five feet and two inches, the playground is a lot smaller than it was at the ripe ages of seven to eleven. Your “adult” hips are, frankly, too large to fit in the child-sized blue plastic swings, and your feet are no longer hardened to the flaking wood chips threatening to give you a splinter. You no longer fit here among the slides and monkey bars, but that doesn’t mean you don’t belong here, even at 18.
Last Saturday, three of my Champlain College friends and I took advantage of our warm day and went to the elementary school playground just bordering the College. We immediately took to the swings, one friend and I just enjoying the warm breeze as we casually pumped our legs back and forth, while our other two friends kept launching themselves from the swings, trying to see who could make it the farthest and not fall flat into the chips. We knew we were having the peak moment of fun of our day as we looked out over the city and the grey lake below.
Though, of course, when we took to the actual jungle gym, I began to feel like a stranger on the structure I knew so well as a child. My friend seemed too large when he went down the twisting slide — his elbows hitting every green wall and his head nearly scraping the bottom of the slide above him. He didn’t shoot down like a three-year-old, launching off the lip of the slide with a scream and a 50-50 chance of landing on his feet; he inched down like a square peg trying to fit through a round hole.
When I tried to climb up the later to join him, I couldn’t help but notice how the golden arches acting as doorways to the gym met me at eye level. They made me pause — made me struggle to enter the oasis a child only a few inches shorter than me could pass through without having to give the password, or persuade the guard.
We struggled. We had to bend and crouch and shake the wood out of our shoes, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t have fun.
No matter what age you are, it’s okay to be young. It is okay to take a Saturday to listen to music on a porch, to take a walk with your friends, to play a board game, to watch the original Goosebumps TV series, to play on a playground. Just because you're 18 or you're in college doesn’t mean you have to have a different kind of fun.
After we had finished our adventure at the playground, two of my friends couldn’t stop raving about how their few hours in the sun were the best hours they’ve spent all week. We were too big and, to some, maybe too “old” to play on the playground — but we still had an amazing experience.
To me, being happy is one of the most important aspects of your life. So, whether you’re 3 or 10 or 18 or even 60-years-old, my advice to you is: do what you can to smile, to be young. And remember: you’re never too old to play on the playground.
