Portia, thank you for your thought-provoking playground post. This has got me thinking and remembering. I like to watch kids in a playground or a park -- it brings back so much, both from my own childhood and from the wonderful times I had with my boys at play. I love to hear the giggles and squeals of happy children.
I always wanted a swing, even a tire in a tree, but I never had one. I had 2 friends, one with a swing set and one with a board on a rope hanging from a tree and I spent many hours pretending I was flying and it felt so good and free.
It may be silly, but I have my own swing now and I use it a lot. I also love rocking chairs -- I have several. I think it has something to do with not being nurtured as a baby, not being rocked or sung to or receiving baby-play. It still just blows my mind how a woman can have a baby and not love it.
I used to walk around carrying my babies all day, never wanting to be apart from them.
I don't remember other kids picking on me at school, but I remember that in kindergarten I played by myself. I was so shy and now I see that it was from being silenced and overlooked at home. I was also almost a year younger than the other kids, so that didn't help. Everyday I cried and didn't want the other kids to look at me or talk to me. But yet, I didn't cry at home, at least not in front of the family. Wow ,,, I was more f'd up than I thought. No wonder I sit around sometimes, curled up licking my wounds and growling if anyone comes near.
Yes, we're ACON's, virtually sorting through and trying to understand our silenced and stolen childhoods. Some of us welcome the new kids, we leave our merry-go-rounds and offer our hands of friendship and understanding to them. Some of us are more gentle than others, but we do what we think is right. There are others who are bullies and want to throw sticks, kick and punch. They are the ones who will pull you off the swing and run over you to get to the slide. Some of them don't want to attach a name to themselves, they just laugh and run around nameless posting jabs here and there, making fun and calling names. Then, there are others, who are worse, they are happy to provide a name(s) but are fakes nonetheless, all pompous and proud -- little bullies who think they are clever, sort of a one-member gang. After they have played a few games with you, built up your trust, they will jump off the other side of the teeter-totter, leaving you to crash to the ground.
But, you know, we are all a bunch of damaged kids. We're here because we are trying to figure this out and learn, even those of us who throw rocks and pull my pigtails.
