Loveday Writing

Play Time

Growing up I loved nothing more than playing handball in the backyard with my brother, Nathan and a boy that lived across the street, playing board games with my parents and cousins and learning how to play cards, spending hours playing my Gameboy, PlayStation and later my Nintendo DS for hours on end. Some of my older cousins and eventually my older brother stopped wanting to play these games when I still wanted to. My love for games hasn’t died, although the amount of time I have to play them have been reduced since becoming a grown up.

I loved playing games—board, card and electronic because they were fun and more importantly, they bonded my family and friends together. It was hilarious when we would “become tycoons and landlords” in Monopoly and when I taught my brother how to play Ludo and beat him at it, literally 20 times before he won himself. I remember learning how to play five card draw as a kid and my mum teaching my brother and I how to play gin rummy.  I was also in my primary school’s chess club for two years, I wasn’t particularly good at it, I joined the club because I love Chess. My fondest memories of being part of the chess club was when I went to another school in Wagga for two days for an inter school tournament. I felt very out of place in a blue and white school dress at a school which had a green and yellow uniform.

Now I play Monopoly and other board and card games on my Nintendo DS. This shows the technological age in full bloom. I love playing these games on my DS, I usually play them at night before I go to sleep or to take a break from study and work—pretty much taking a break from being a grown up, because they relax me.

I haven’t abandoned the boards completely, at my family home we bought a new Monopoly and Cluedo game and we have some sort of trivia game somewhere in the house. My mum bought me portable checkers, chess and Chinese checkers games. I take them with me to uni every year, so I can play with my friends. My last boyfriend was exceptionally good at checkers. Trying to beat a significant other at board and card games can be very romantic. 😛

Games and play time may be seen as just for kids, but I think it is one of very few things that you can still have in adulthood as an appropriate way to revert back to your childhood, which is something we should all do every now and then.