Nostalgic Park

Today I found myself sitting with my cousin, Justin, in a park we used to frequent as kids in South Salem, NY. Sitting at a splintering picnic table, we obsereved the park-goers and wondered what their daily lives must be like. It's a Friday afternoon; the wind is chilly, but the sun is out and the weather is tolerable. I watched as parents sat with each other conversing, probably talking about their children playing in the playground nearby, and wondered if our parents did the same when we were young.

My cousin and I talked about how much things have changed since we were kids, and how different the park looked since we were last there. The community pool across the pond seemed empty and sad now. The weather had not been right for it to open, and so it remained quiet for most of the day. The children would run around the playground, sometimes into eachother, laughing, screaming, crying, and the oarents would not seem to notice. That's the thing about parent's in Westchester County, they don't seem to really care that much.

I observed them mostly keeping to the other parents, whom they probably knew, and seemed to almost be avoiding their children. I don't recall it being like that when I was younger. I remember my mother helping me on the swings or dig sand pits. I remember my father taking me fishing with my sisters in the scummy, insect-ridden pond. Now, it just seemed too fake. I jokingly asked my cousin if he thought any of these parents had jobs or worked for a living. He didn't think so. Most of them probably were stay-at-home parents who had maids and other people take care of their kids for them so they didn't have to. That's what life was like there. Most parents had no interest in their children whatsoever. It was a depressing scene.

Before we left, my cousin and I walked over to the small trail behind the swingsets. We reminisced about days when we would sneak away from our parents and play back there in the solitude of the woods. There were no parents back there, no children walking the trails. Just us, and the occasional squirrel. Though all the nostalgia I was feeling, I still had this overwhelming saddness about how much time has changed us.

We are both very different people now; different life-choices, different goals and ideas for the future. As we walked back to the car to drive back to my grandparent's house, I imagined myself young once more, enjoying all the time I had before the responsibilities of adulthood took over. Those youthful days of my past seem to be another life to me now.