Today, for the first time, I went to a trampoline park at 20 years old. Some readers may think I’m exaggerating but I’m not. Some may be calling their last visit to one when they were a pre-teen. Others may understand the feeling of wanting to recreate the kind of childhood they were not able to have a decade ago.Â
I grew up in a low-income family, where we never had much money left over to purchase luxuries such as passes to a trampoline park. Even today as I was purchasing my pass for the indoor park, I hesitated a second wondering if this was a good manner to use my money. I had worked my part-time jobs for that money. It was my money through and through, and yet I couldnât help but feel a bit guilty. As I jumped from one square to the next, an emotion that I rarely have experienced outside of elementary school resurfaces. My face has a smile plastered on it would take such a piece of devastating news to erase it from there.Â
This feeling of pure joy. This feeling of complete bliss. This feeling of complete and utter happiness. This feeling of euphoria. A feeling that even as a child I didnât experience often but am now able to buy myself a recreation of those experiences I missed all those years ago. Regardless of what I did or didnât have as a child, I am still eternally grateful to my parents for providing for me and taking care of me. But that doesnât mean we should have to miss our opportunities with these experiences for all of our lives.Â
Another moment that healed my inner child was going to Build-a-bear. Although the employees thought I looked a bit older than their regular customers and skipped the âritualâ prior to stuffing my new friend, the experience was still memorable. I left the store with watery eyes as I held onto the bow with my new friend as tight as possible.Â
As many of us get more stable jobs and learn to manage our money as well as we can, I encourage you to experience the memories you may have missed in your childhood. Whether it was financial reasons, medical reasons, or just not the right time for your family to have given that experience to you at the time, make sure you recreate your childhood. Glue together the maybe fucked up childhood pieces you had by healing them and experiencing them now with your friends. I hope you get to experience that kind of euphoria as I did.