I call foul play(ground)

It took me a year to visit my son's playground at school.  There was no real reason that I avoided going there...elementary school in general gave me anxiety because of my own traumas but not necessarily the playground.

I was struck by this upon my first excursion:

Ramps! They had ramps leading to the landing.  So it has been a couple years since this discovery but last week this memory came to me as I snapped this photo.

I spent P.E. class taking walks around the field while everyone else was following the coaches - running, playing sports...The school nurse walked with me.  I think I was in second grade when, with the nurse's help, and some coaching from thr special education adaptive P.E. folks, I was climbing up the steps to the playground and going down the SSSLLLLIIIIIDDEESSS (and those bridges that were made up of wooden slats on metal chains).

Yes that emphatic spelling was needed.  Nobody taught me this before and the playground is psychosocial capital at that age.  I was proud.  My parents knew about this, really anyone that needed to know, knew. And the woman that did not need to know?  She was my second grade teacher.  Until the day she knew what I was doing because she happened to see me on my ascent - and ran to me and demanded me to get down.  I was asked

"whatwouldmyparentsdoiftheyknew?" 

Even though they did know and were supportive.  Because why would you not be supportive of a playground party line if you have a child?  

I never did that again.  At least not at school.  It was one of two times in elementary school that a teacher determined what I should or should not be doing, based on nothing.  Both instances had cataclysmal effects on me.  Would resiliense and rebellion change the course my life took?  Probably not but this (the playground) and that (the walking) are things I have never gotten to relive.

But now, kids who are like me, who struggle to walk and keep up, they can go down the slides.  And if only this playground present was my playground past... 

I do not always place emphasis on living vicariously through my kids because their lives and experiences are theirs, and living through someone who experiences walking is not the same as living through walking.  That said, when I see that my children live in a world with less of the obstacles that surrounded me at their age, I consider it living redemptively.