Because now you’re finally tall and can look down at the world below you. Gone are those constant views of ankles, coffee table legs, and your family cat’s hollow, piercing eyes. Now you’re zooming up and over gardens, sandlots, and your baby brother’s distant, fading cries.
Stomach gushing, adrenaline rushing, it’s your first taste of the high life.
Photo from: here
28 Comments
June 9, 2009 at 6:02 am
I think this is one of my favorites so far. I remember that feeling so well.
Runner-ups would be the feeling of going over a small hill in a car, or the first drop in a roller coaster.
June 13, 2009 at 5:30 pm
I totally relate to the first one — especially if you’re sitting backwards in an old station wagon.
June 9, 2009 at 7:33 am
I’m with someotherkate, this is classic. I thought the exact same thing about going over hills in the car. As a 38 year old, I still look for this feeling!
June 9, 2009 at 9:10 am
Ugh, not awesome for me. I hate that feeling. Hills, swings, planes taking off or landing, don’t even ask me if I want to go on a roller coaster. Blech!
June 9, 2009 at 9:44 am
As scared as I am of heights and roller coasters, I love that feeling of swinging really high — sort of scary, sort of exciting. It’s wonderful. I wish I was on a swing right now instead of at my desk…
June 13, 2009 at 5:31 pm
Yeah, I think you totally nailed it, Positively Present. It is a weird and exhilarating feeling of scary and exciting shaken together in a paint can.
July 27, 2010 at 6:47 am
Neil, i think YOU totally nailed it. Short and sweet article, it was AWESOME!
That feeling is pretty cool/unpleasant/pleasant/ticklish/butterflies all in one go. Especially when you go on this pretty fast ferris wheel where you can spin the cages around that we have at one show here :D my friend and i crack up because she thinks it tickles, so laughs, then i laugh because she is laughing ridiculously! XD ahhh, good times <3
December 21, 2009 at 4:03 pm
I LOVE this feeling! After the feeling goes away, I jump of the swing!!! I love the feeling of jumping of the swing!!! Makes me feel like i’m FLYING!!!!
June 9, 2009 at 1:45 pm
When I was a kid, and you’d get someone to push you, and push you, and then one time, run completely under you while pushing you, to get you really high, we called that an “under-doggy”. And those were highly coveted on the playground, because at that very moment, you were higher than ANYONE else.
AWESOME!
June 13, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Under-doggies were awesome, Freddo. Great call, I completely forgot about those. As for my ‘king of the playground high’, I always enjoyed chilling out on the little patch of wood at the top of the slide. Go ahead, kids. Feel free to slide down past me. I’m just going to enjoy the view for a while.
April 20, 2010 at 6:29 pm
We called ‘em run-unders. “C’mon, give me a run-under!”
My eldest was about 3 when I took a steep short incline in the car a bit fast, resulting in swing-tummy. Or as she called it, looking at me and smiling: “Funny peepee!” Which, of course, passed into the Family Lexicon.
June 9, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Also very familiar to the feeling you get in Mario Kart driving through Wario’s Gold Mine down those steeeeeeeeeeeeeep drops.
June 13, 2009 at 5:33 pm
Leave it to Cooktine to bring this back to video games. Usually I enjoy the ‘falling’ feeling in Mario Kart when I slip into the abyss beside Rainbow Road.
May 7, 2010 at 5:11 pm
I get that drop-of-the-stomach feeling too when I play certain video games. Glad to know I’m not the only one!
June 9, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Does anybody remember “the bumps?”
When a couple of kids we swinging really high, and they were synchronized, sometimes the rear feet of the swingset would start to lift out of the ground, and then come down again with a ‘bump.’
It was really something to brag about, if you and a friend achieved ‘the bumps.’
It was only backyard swingsets that did this, the public ones with concrete footings would never budge.
June 13, 2009 at 5:33 pm
OH MY GOD YES.
June 9, 2009 at 5:43 pm
This is got to be the most awesome feeling ever
June 9, 2009 at 6:12 pm
I remmeber that feeling when I was younger and use to go on the swings all the time. My stomach felt like it dropped. It was fun though. I liked it.
June 10, 2009 at 2:25 pm
I remember sort of hating this when I was a kid. But now that my daughter is old enough to swing, I hop right onto one and show her what swinging high REALLY looks like. The feeling is weird, but swinging is too much fun.
June 13, 2009 at 5:35 pm
Ha ha, I love the way you put that. “I show here what swinging high REALLY looks like.”
Martin, I totally picture you with a devilish grin on your face jumping on the swings and just zooming way, way up to the sky, maybe flipping right over the thing.
Then you get off, sweating, panting, and you point back at the swing and go “THAT’S what I’m talking about”
June 13, 2009 at 7:34 am
Hehe great fun
July 16, 2009 at 6:12 pm
[...] #748 That feeling in your stomach when you go really high on the swings [...]
September 25, 2009 at 9:01 pm
This is one of my favorites. Just thinking about it gives me that tickly feeling in my stomach.
November 4, 2009 at 9:52 pm
i get that super-excited butterfly-in-stomach feeling when i’m just think or reminisce about pleasant things.
November 6, 2009 at 4:44 am
I am 24 and I’m still love swings and that feeling. :)
May 11, 2010 at 6:41 am
[...] seeing it everywhere #937 The smell of rain on a hot sidewalk #880 Getting piggy-backed anywhere #748 That feeling in your stomach when you go really high on the swings #671 Reuniting a sock from the Sock Orphanage Drawer with its freshly washed, once lost brother or [...]
July 6, 2010 at 5:01 pm
I like the drop of a roller coaster better, because I’m not very good at swinging. xD
August 21, 2010 at 4:54 pm
[...] #748 That feeling in your stomach when you go really high on the swings [...]