ANGULAR MOMENTUM

We took a young family to the park yesterday. I went on a swing, and suddenly realised that my body is not comfortable with being quickly accelerated or subject to rapid changes in angular momentum.

How did that happen? I mean it wasn’t an age ago that I went on a rollercoaster. And not long before that I could fling myself over a wall, or scale a climbing rope, or hang gymnastically from the training bars of an adventure playground. Now I can’t swing… on a child’s swing… without feeling woozy!

I stood on a mini roundabout as well. No, not one of the ones in the middle of the road; I mean the children’s thing that slowly spins about 30cm from the ground. It is ever so gentle - even the wind could push me slowly round at about half a mile an hour.

It made me dizzy and I had trouble getting off it. That didn’t feel great. 30cm and I’m stumbling off it like a man indulging in Caribbean rum on a cruise. Only there was no blaming the sea for me.

Sigh. Life comes at you fast. The morning sun cast long shadows over the spring grass and the wood mulch. The kids we were with happily raced between the exciting bits of apparatus, and we, I, were (was) eventually resigned to pushing swings and watching happy little faces.

Who’s going to tell them? Who’s going to tell them that one day the hilarity of slides and ropes and swings will be replaced with spreadsheets? Who’s going to tell them that even the thought of it will make them feel a bit sick? Not me. Not anyone. So the circle of life continues.

I suppose it doesn’t have to - plenty of people do CrossFit or extreme sports. I know it’s not quite the same thing when you grow up, but there are ways to get used to angular momentum, and find the fun in it. Truth is though, it seems harder, it seems to come with much more of a cost - a price you just can’t understand when you’re little.

We had a great time at the park, regardless of me overthinking all of that. The kids were beaming, and happy, and (as was the objective I think) tired out. It had been a long long time since I’d been in a play park, but even though it had all changed, I guess I still recognised that feeling.