Fitzgerald's Park 01/11/25

Today I decided to go for a spontaneous, aimless walk. No real destination. Lately I only walk for the most practical of reasons. To college, to a friend's house, to the shop, home. Headphones on to drown out the busyness of the city around me. But today I had no headphones. I wanted to take a moment to slow down and take notice of the world around me. Lately life has just been too busy to find the time to just think and exist without thinking of the million other things I have to do.

I ended up in Fitzgerald's park and I sat on a bench and just disconnected from my phone and all the things I use to distract my brain. There were lots of children around. Playing, laughing, climbing the stairs to nowhere. Everything around me seemed so much more colourful than usual. All the Autumn colours were the most vibrant I've seen them in a long time. I thought about how when I was younger the world around me seemed so much more vivid with colour. Whereas now everything seems to be overcast with this dark grey hue most of the time.

Do you remember when you were younger and everything had a much more exciting purpose and meaning? Sticks weren't just sticks. They were swords and magic wands. Bridges were housing trolls underneath. Strange movements in the water weren't just caused by fish and such but mermaids or undiscovered water monsters.

I remember when I was younger, thinking that I could control the wind. The leaves blowing in chaotic circles were all my own doing. Then, whenever I was sad or people were mean to me, it was okay because I had this superpower that nobody else knew about and that made me special. It made me an integral part of the universe. I remember that trees that provided any sort of shelter became our homes at lunchtime when we'd play mams and dads. White dandelion seeds blowing in the wind were actually fairies with their big white tutu like skirts. A hole in a tree was home to all sorts of fantasy creatures. Potholes weren't just inconvenient eyesores that the council needs to fix, but the footsteps of a giant. If they were filled with water they were lakes where the fairies would play. Abandoned houses were surely the homes of ghosts or not so friendly vampires. The sun shining in the window a certain way contained a secret message that I can't quite remember anymore.

I felt so disheartened that my imagination may well be gone forever. Or at the very least will never be as active as it used to be. Spoiler alert! I cried on that bench in Fitzgerald's park over this fact. When did everything stop being so exciting? When did we stop making everything into a far fetched story? And what do we have instead? Delusions over failed romances? Worries about where our lives are heading and where we'll be in five years time? What an unhappy replacement for imagination! Eventually I decided to get up and move along. Accept that imagination was a power I have long lost to harsh and unromantic realities. But then, some leaves on the ground caught my eye. Something about the shape of them made me think of dinosaur feet. The red and orange colours like they had been painted. They created this image in my head of a dinosaur trying to do some kind of arts and crafts project that they abandoned on the ground at Fitzgerald's park. After that, as I was leaving I thought, "maybe someday I'll remember what the message of the sun shining through the window was".