Even before my husband left me last summer, I had been trying to add some spice to my life. I was tired of the status quo: wake up, work, come home, eat, watch television, sleep…and then do it all again, day after day. Even the weekends were boring – nothing but catching up on cleaning, cooking, grocery shopping, and laundry. We rarely left the house to do anything fun, intimacy was lacking, and I needed stimulation – mentally and physically.

I started to take a few classes – cooking, jewelry making, and the like. I began to invite people over to the house from time to time for get-togethers – working on my socialization skills, which were severely out of practice. After Doc left, I ramped it up – reading books that challenged my mind and thinking, learning to meditate, and joining some clubs that participated in activities I enjoyed. But in the last few weeks, I’ve been doing something I’ve never had the nerve to do before – I’m now a swinger!

Quite frankly, swinging is something I never would have even considered just a few months ago. I mean, it’s so outside of my norm and comfort zone! Plus, let’s face it – I’m firmly entrenched in middle age and swinging is something I always imagined was best left to people much younger than me – those who had to energy and stamina to participate for hours on end with other, like-minded, young people. I really went back and forth with my decision – was I too old? Too out of shape? Could I really handle it?

I might as well be honest here. I had tried swinging once before, when I was much, much younger. It wasn’t a pleasant experience. My partner at the time had really romped on me when I wasn’t expecting it*. I got hurt and vowed I would never do it again. But this time, I would be going in without a partner – at least to begin with. And if I didn’t give it another shot – now that I’m older, wiser, and have more of an idea of what I want and what my boundaries are – then would I regret it later?

I knew of a couple of potential places where swinging went on. I had been keeping my eyes out for several months while I considered if it was something I really wanted to do – so I knew where to start. So, one day a few weeks ago, I decided to take the plunge during my lunch hour at work. An hour isn’t a long time, so I hustled, a little anxious about what I might find. Turns out, I had a reason to be worried. When I got there, I saw…a tire swing.

It’s evil!

I had gone to the park looking forward to letting my inner child have some carefree fun – but I had expected regular swings. I hadn’t done any swinging on a tire swing before, but really, isn’t a swing a swing? It looked fun! I attempted to sit on the tire swing and quickly learned that tire swings aren’t meant for middle-aged women. It was too tall – and I was too short – so it wasn’t as easy as just sitting down. I had to do an awkward kind of jump-shuffle, grabbing the chains and attempting to hoist my ass up and into the swing.

The tire swing wasn’t cooperating.

Finally, after so many attempts that I was panting and sweat was streaming into places that sweat should never be (especially when you are wearing work clothes), I decided that perhaps instead of trying to sit on the swing, I should straddle the tire – putting one leg through the center hole. I held onto the chains with both hands and managed to lift my foot up and over the swing, but as I lowered it into the opening, my other foot lost contact with the ground. I could practically hear the tire swing chortling in glee as it began to spin rapidly, dragging me along with it.

I think we’ve established that I’m not good with spinning things. Nearly immediately, my stomach let me know it was not happy. I didn’t blame it – I wasn’t happy either! I finally managed to shift backwards enough that my toe was able to get some traction with the ground, stopping the worse of the spinning. However, that was as far as I could go. The foot in the center of the tire was determined to stay there – I couldn’t manage to lift it high enough to clear the tire and get back to terra firma.

As I leaned back, trying to drag my foot towards me, my ass became the center of gravity and the tire swing began to revolve around me, as if it was the earth and I was a gigantic sun. The more I struggled, the faster it whirled and the faster I was forced to hop to keep my body turned towards the swing so I was not twisted into a human pretzel. It was confusing to be both grateful that there was no one else in the park to witness my humiliation and frustrated that there was no one else in the park to help me get out of that damn swing!

At last, with an alarming creak of the chains, the tire swing disgorged my foot, spinning merrily to and fro and barely missing my head as I fell in an undignified heap into the thick bed of mulch below.

I haven’t given up on being a swinger. In fact, I’ve tried it a couple of times since (in parks with real swings) and actually had a pretty good time. I sometimes get strange looks from the younger crowd (say, 2-12 years old) who wonder why a middle-aged woman is into swinging – but I just keep going – unless they start to cry because I’m hogging the swing.

*The particular incident I mentioned above happened in 4th grade – a friend and I were “spider swinging,” which is when one child sits on the swing and another child sits on the first child’s lap, facing the other direction. Both children pump their legs and you go really high. Unfortunately, in my case (I was the child on the bottom and leaning WAY back to get lots of power), my friend literally bounced up on my chest and I ended up falling backwards and my back was totally mangled as it was dragged back and forth along the playground asphalt.

Are you a swinger? Do you ever let your inner child out to play? What do you do when you want to have fun?