I’m taller than her, despite being younger. But at that moment, we sat on the swing as we got pushed high into the air. I wore a thick, striped polo shirt that hung off of my tiny frame. Blonde hair, big teeth and a cheerful grin. My tiny self and my tiny sister. Childish cackles were heard as we went up and down, up and down, up and down. 

I loved that big basket swing. I remember it being absolutely huge compared to my tiny self. Made of rope and supported by thick metal supports, which helped create an odd shape, ensuring you wouldn’t hit the pole. A sanctuary for big adventures for tiny people. 

By the time I was 13, I realized this faint memory was my earliest memory. Seen in dreams and flashbacks, I thought I was making it all up, or it was strangely recurring in my dreams. It wasn’t until I mentioned this memory to my mom that she responded with, “You mean the swing by our old apartment complex in Switzerland?” 

After living in Switzerland for the first three years of my life, I made my return 13 long years later. My made-up perspective and memory about a place I barely knew transformed as we revisited the playground behind our old apartment complex. Once a pocket with two or three apartment buildings was now filled with a maze of apartment complexes. Filled with new apartments, new people, new everything, yet some aspects remained the same. I saw the big swing, which I thought was in a park, not in my precious three-year-old self’s Switzerland backyard.  

We walk through the archway that is carved into the apartments on the way to the park. The park is near a forest and spaced out so everyone can play. It includes worn tables, which are probably older than me, and a schoolyard — all a two-minute walk away. 

A greenish park with a little bike merry-go-round; a tiny one built for four-year-olds. Immediately, I jump onto it and go around and around. I look like an imposter with my long legs bent all the way up as I’m crouching down holding the steering wheel. 

Me and my siblings then move to the in-ground trampoline, where Addi, my older sister, used to jump as if she were a tiny fairy. Now more than two times her little self’s height, she jumps again and again. I continue eyeing the basket swing as it’s occupied by a kid experiencing her first big adventure as a tiny person. 

Instead, we climb on a pyramid-like play structure. It’s metal and spins. My siblings jump onto the structure as I run around, spinning them to the point where they feel sick. Finally, the kid leaves, taking the hint we want a turn with the swing. I bolt for the swing and jump in. The basket, still huge but not as huge as it used to be, is slightly uncomfortable. I don’t care. I beg to be pushed. My little brother pushes me, but it isn’t enough. I need to be soaring like I used to. So, Addi pushes me, and I feel the same sensation from 13 years ago. 

I go up and down, up and down, up and down. The same cackle, now deeper, is heard throughout the air. The same big teeth remain. 

“Do you think that part of you right now, a combination of that three-year-old self, is in there?” says Tracy, my journalism teacher. 

I pause. Is the three-year-old still inside of me? Is he alive, or has he vanished? 

Returning to Switzerland, a place that I could’ve grown up in and could’ve been a completely different Luca, didn’t feel real. It wasn’t what I expected. But I should’ve expected that it wouldn’t be what I thought it was, considering it was made up of ancient memories of mine. 

I was once three, enjoying that basket swing, and now I am 16, having still enjoyed that basket swing, even after returning more than a decade later. I didn’t feel he was even a figment of me, but now, at my core, I feel and know he is still alive in me.