Picture it now — little kids running around, probably bumping into each other, a giant foam pit just waiting for you to crawl out of and “Happy Birthday” being sung in the background. I feel like many of us have a vision of a trampoline park, either in our memories or just from stories we have been told, but a lot of us associate the location with younger versions of ourselves.
I had my 13th birthday party at a trampoline park back at home, and I remember it as one of the best birthdays I’ve ever had. It was also a time of transition: I moved up to a new age group in swimming, and more importantly, I was entering my “teenage years,” a period of time that gets talked about a lot when it comes to young women.
So, I guess it is only fitting to enter and leave these teenage years with the chaos and adrenaline rush that comes with a trampoline park.
I love the feeling of letting go that you get when you’re bouncing on a trampoline. For milliseconds, gravity is just a construct that you’ve broken through and it has you believing that anything is possible, transporting you back in time to being a kid again. It definitely doesn’t hurt that some flips and tricks from my gymnastics days have stuck with me.
Beyond the symbolism of it all, I just wanted to do something different, where my friends and I could have fun and talk instead of playing musical chairs around a dinner table. What’s great is that it is also something that’s memorable for all of us and not something we would normally go out of our way to do.
It’s safe to say I’ve changed a lot since my last visit to a trampoline park. I haven’t gotten taller (literally have not grown since 7th grade), but I’ve gone through sports injuries, friendships, a worldwide pandemic and even living by myself in an entirely different city. So, in the midst of acknowledging all these changes, it’s nice to know that some things, like wanting to jump my heart out at any bouncy surface imaginable, never change.