Pink Tights, Green Spheres, and The Yellow Park

(The author Grace Haugk pictured in her pink soccer socks)

When I was five years old, I ripped a hole in my favorite pair of tights. It was the last pair I happily wore.

The first seven years of my life were contained in a house of 500 square feet that sat across from a playground. “The Yellow Park”, as we called it, my little brother and I. Every day in the summer between kindergarten and first grade, I would rush through my Froot Loops and orange juice, pull on a mismatched shirt and skirt and my cherished neon pink tights, and sprint out the door. Some days I’d walk to the park, but most days I’d bike. I liked the little pouch on the front of the handlebars. It could hold two juice boxes at once, so I was sure to be the most popular kid at the playground.

This day, though, we were out of juice boxes, and I couldn’t bear the thought of bringing my bike pouch empty. That would be mortifying. No, I’d just walk, rather than bring an empty pouch.

Not only was I bike-less and juice box-less, but I was friendless on my walk to the park. My little brother had decided that he’d rather play catch against the wall than accompany me on my daily trek. It wasn’t the end of the world. In fact, I was ecstatic. I’d won a bit of independence by making it through kindergarten; I was finally allowed to go to the park alone. I didn’t need anyone and I’d prove it.

I think I’ve always been an independent person. As a five-year-old, there wasn’t a lot of freedom I was rewarded, so I took what I could get. Even today, I still get that same rush of ecstasy doing something on my own. Now, though, it’s dull things like going to the bank instead of the colorful liberation of autonomous playground-going.

So, head high and tights bright, I headed to the park. I walked the usual path, looking back and forth, back, and forth again before crossing the street. I stayed to the left by the pickleball courts to avoid the mean dog behind the wooden fence. I walked around the manhole cover and finally, finally, stepped up onto the woodchips with defiance only a child can have.

I went about my typical tasks, which consisted of collecting discarded bb-gun spheres and acorn caps and attempting to do the monkey bars backward. Despite the familiarity of this routine, something about today felt different. There was no one to show my seven bright green spheres to or to race against on the monkey bars. It was somber, almost, that day at the park.

I still feel that now in the course of exercising my new freedoms. Blasting my music alone in my car is bittersweet. I can play whatever I want, but there’s no one to share it with. My mind is much more at ease when the passenger seat and conversation are filled.

Across the playground, in their own world, a little girl collected sticks as her brother leaned them against each other in a sort of teepee. Every time she brought one that was of substantial size, her brother would smile and high-five her. I sat there a while, watching them. I didn’t know then what about them was so entrancing, but I couldn’t look away. My vision blurred with tears.

I turned and ran away, leaving showers of woodchips in my wake. Why did I think I could handle this level of independence? I needed to be home now, and my feet couldn't carry me quickly enough. Then, a sharp pain in my hands and on my right knee. My pink tights grew red around the new hole on my leg.

I was face-down on the concrete, halfway home but feeling further than ever. Hot tears ran down my face that was nearly as red as my knee, but from embarrassment rather than the blood soaking into my precious pink tights.

The level of hopelessness I felt at that moment was alien to me at five, but I regret to say I know it all too well twelve years later. I hold my liberty nearer to my heart than anything else. though it betrays me time and time again. My first bite of freedom had left the taste of blood in my mouth, but still, I hungered for more. I had something to prove. Now, seventeen and with a severe affliction for tights, that something has yet to be proven and I’d do almost anything to make it so.