Born to be mild

I’m writing from a place that calls itself The Sandbox, a vast, sun-scorched expanse in Pampanga with attractions that look fun if you’re under 13 or over 30 with something to prove.

It’s like Enchanted Kingdom with less magic and more shrieking as emotional release. A spa day for people whose idea of healing is screaming until their spine realigns.

It’s marketed as “family fun,” which is perfect because nothing brings a family together like shared trauma on a giant swing.

I liked it the way a cat might a windowsill: from a safe distance, with zero intention of participating.

I only came to judge. To observe humanity mid-freefall. But somehow, I ended up with a golf club in my hand.

“You look like you play,” the guy handing me the stick said.

I laughed. But now I was locked in. There were children watching. An auntie with a visor.

It wasn’t a compliment. It was a dare. I stepped onto the mini-golf platform like a man with a past.

Something about holding a club made me feel noble. I gripped it with confidence, the way my father might've gripped silence after my birth.

I stood, legs apart, chest forward, the smug calmness of a pro: a pose I hadn’t struck since I last tried to open a stubborn jar in front of a woman.

I swung. The ball did not move. My soul, however, did. It sank.

I smiled. That fraud smile. The smile of a man who has just driven the wrong way down a one-way street and now must pretend he meant to.

“Happens to the pros,” I said. To no one.

I tried again, this time with the stiff determination of someone attempting to swat an elusive fly.

I missed. Naturally.

Golf is said to be peaceful. I guess shame counts as inner peace now.

Yet, I refused to quit. I held the pose, pretending it was all part of the plan.

I gave it another go, this time with the shaky resolve of a man trying to parallel park in front of the police. The ball inched forward (out of pity, I think), which is more than I can say for most of my adult relationships.

I had attracted a modest crowd. They were invested now.

By the fifth stroke, I was no longer playing golf. I was excavating shame from the Earth.

I walked off the green. Someone offered me water. I said no. I wanted to suffer.

Somewhere in the distance was a raw and guttural scream, the kind you make when your soul momentarily detaches from your body.

The Giant Swing. Of course. Nothing says “healing” like being yanked skyward.

I realized the true divide in society isn’t wealth or class but the willingness to let it out in public without shame.

They strap two people in, hoist them up, and let gravity finish the job. You’d think that it would make you feel free. They looked trapped.

Their faces said, "This wasn’t in the brochure!"

Mid-swing, one girl’s soul visibly tried to exit through her nostrils but got jammed somewhere behind her tonsils.

Their mouths opened so wide I could see what they had for lunch, what they dreamed about last night, and a faint glimpse of their trauma.

There’s a comfort in watching someone else scream for their life. I just stood there and absorbed their panic like vitamin D, reminded that I still have some control.

Her scream was an entire emotional backstory: years of bottled-up frustration coming out in a single, chaotic release: "I haate you, Joooh-nhel!"

You could almost hear her therapist: "And how does that make you feel?"

A woman climbed the zipline platform, each step stiff with denial, as if her body knew what was coming but she was too polite to object.

She had so many chances to back out. At the stairs. At the harness check. At the final ledge where hope goes to die.

But no, all she got was the sound of her own yelp thoughts: "You are an idiot. You are an idiot. You are an idiot."

She jumped, shrieking like she just remembered she left the stove on.

Mid-slide, it seemed she lost control of everything: her body, her internal organs, her ability to believe in joy.

The drop wasn’t steep; it was philosophical. She saw her whole life before her. She saw the face of God and He looked disappointed.

There’s nothing like dangling from a cable to remind you how little your therapist really knows.

Halfway across, the damn zipline started stabilizing before undulating like it was having second thoughts about whether or not it wanted her alive: "Thought you’re done? Here's life smacking you in the face with another swing."

As if on cue, someone pointed to the next attraction: the obstacle course.

It's what happens when adult responsibility and childhood fantasy meet in an alley and beat each other senseless with foam bats.

It looked easy enough. Until you realized it was something invented by someone who’s never met an adult with a bad knee.

There’s something uniquely humbling about watching a six-year-old conquer a climbing wall while you pretend to look busy tying your shoe for the third time.

It starts simple: a ramp, a hanging rope. Then five minutes later, you’re gasping for air and tangled in netting.

You don’t conquer it. You negotiate with it. You plead. You offer sacrifices. You come to an understanding that your pride was never really yours to begin with.

If there’s one thing that screeches “healing,” it’s a grown man in a plastic car.

The Go-Kart itself was less a vehicle and more a metal approximation of freedom or childhood, basically, if that means driving one is like being given power without responsibility, speed without direction, and noise without purpose.

It started with a helmet, something thick, padded, and already damp in a way that suggested previous occupants had screamed more than driven.

You rev the engine and lurch forward. Because life's a race, and The Sandbox at Alviera only gives you go-karts.

Good luck keeping up.