There's something bittersweet about going to your elementary school playground in the middle of the night.
The calamity that befell you during those years on the playground isn't what you meet when you go back; moonlight shines eerily upon the chains to the swing your childhood best friend jumped off of when they broke their arm in the third grade; the wind rustles the tether ball you once hit so hard it went all the way around and hit you in the face. It's like the whole area is completely different- as though you having grown has made it grow, too, or inversely, like it is far too small, and so are you for having experienced it.
Somehow, being there feels as though the time is running out on your childhood years. Those days were long over even before you lost your virginity in the back of your ex boyfriend's 2003 Chevy Impala. You can smell the wood chips, the asphalt, and the rubber ball you played with during your tenure on the four-square court. Being there in that space is like being in your childhood home for the last time before it's sold off- strangely nostalgic, yet meant for another time.
On the night in question, dear reader, I was with someone I thought I loved. The fickle and fragile reality of teen infatuation is, as you probably already know, fleeting. She was tumultuous. She was so different from my quiet demeanor. I was so insecure, and she made me feel like I could do anything. We kissed; we made out in the secrecy of her basement on the old couch. Her scent was all around me, enveloping me and I felt as though I could love her forever.
Unfortunately, before the summer was over, I had moved on. Between my growing feelings toward a boy and my fear of coming out as bisexual to my mother, I decided against pursuing her romantically. I broke it off with her pettily, and even now I feel guilty and wonder how things could have been. I'll never know if I was simply too afraid, or whether I just didn't feel that way. Even though I may not have loved her as she did me, I did love her as much as I could love anyone. She was my support system, she was the only one I could be authentic without fear with. She will always hold a special place in my heart... but like many, many things, she was just not meant to be in my life.
