I've always loved parks. The play equipment; The vibrant green, perfectly-manicured lawn; The towering trees and the trees perfect for climbing; the wide, open spaces for running...
The only thing I wasn't too fond of was the kids.
You see... I never had good luck with kids at parks. This may be hard for some of you to believe, but I was actually a really social little kid. I saw places like the park as just another social outlet. Unfortunately, not too many other kids had the same outlook. Other times, I'd just run into kids who were just plain rude. Examples? Here you go.
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I was about 6 years old. We all walked to the park at my great grandma's house. I had a lot on the agenda for that day: I was to run wistfully and majestically around the trees, singing songs from "Quest for Camelot." (I felt a bond with the main character, since both of our names were Kaylee, and all... ;) But the second we got there, my plans were changed upon finding a myriad of kids to play with! I imagined all the fun we'd have. They were in the middle of playing tag or hide and seek or something like that... but I walked up to one of them and asked to play.
"Sorry," she looked down on me from the slide, "it's sort of a family game."
My hopes imploded as I walked away, defeated. I didn't understand why they wouldn't want to play with me... I was a pretty cool kid, wasn't I? We would've had so much fun! ...And since when was tag a "family game"...?
I wound up spending the rest of my time at the park crying, slowly circling the trees and pathetically singing songs from "Quest for Camelot" at a much slower, solemn tempo. We wound up leaving shortly afterwards, because one of the kids on the monkey bars spit on Karissa's head. O_o
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Years went by, and we moved into a neighborhood with a park within walking distance from our house. I found myself talking to this girl around my age on the swings. The conversation was going pretty good, then...
"Do you go to Forest Grove Elementary?"
"Nope, I'm homeschooled."
"Nope, I'm homeschooled."
"What...? That's horrible."
"Why?"
"Homeschool SUCKS! You stay in your house all day and you don't get to go on field trips, or talk to friends, or blahblahblahblah"
".....It's not that bad......"
I guess she overlooked the fact that I was talking to her, a complete stranger, so I wasn't a total social degenerate... ;)
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The next instance came in the form of two preteen boys, one of which I thought was really cute. (My taste in boys has changed quite a bit since I was 11, so I wonder what I'd think of him now. O_o)
Anyway... they were seeing who could jump off the swings and land the farthest. The second, "less attractive" kid had fallen on his leg and was lying on the ground. This happened to be the time where we walked over to get a closer look at what they were doing, then we decided to place bets (with no stakes... just bragging rights) on who would go farther. Cole, one of the neighbor kids, pointed to the second boy recovering from his minor injury. "I think HE can do it!" He shouted enthusiastically. I turned starry-eyed to the first kid. "Then I think you can do it," I smiled.
"Hey, that's not fair!" He interjected, "You're just betting on me because he hurt his leg!"
I stood where I was, blank-faced at his accusations. My face turned red.
Nope, I wasn't betting on him because his friend hurt his leg. I was betting on him because I secretly thought he was cute. Geesh!
I left the park slightly indignant, embarrassed and thinking he was much less appealing than I had originally articulated.
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I guess we did have a couple good experiences at the park. There was one time where I actually found a really nice girl the same age as me. We spent hours at the park talking and playing on the merry-go-round. We had a lot in common. We were both home schooled, and I think we even had similar personalities. She lived in the area, too. She told me the street that she lived on, and that she lived in the "brown house." My bad luck here fell in the fact that I forgot the name of the street, and that there are a plethora of brown houses in our neighborhood.
Needless to say, I never saw her again.
Eventually I got older and became more aware of myself and that *gasp* I could say something stupid! So I didn't feel as comfortable going up to strange kids in the park and talking to them (these previously-mentioned incidents could've added to it, too...) Now when I go to a park, there are rarely people my age, anyway. :P
