Like Riding a Bike

How do you hold onto the passion of your hobbies? I wish I actually had the answer to this. When I was a kid there were many hobbies I used to love doing. Running around in the woods and watching nature. Playing in the garden and getting my hands dirty while watching the fruits of my labor grow. Reading so vigorously that I could devour 400-page books in less than a day. Demolishing book series after series, unable to put them down. Drawing and painting, creating my own pieces of art for friends and family in different mediums. Writing. I used to write poems, craft elaborate stories and epic tales, pour my heart out on to the pages of journals and in Microsoft Word. But somewhere along the line, the passion for it, died.

One by one the hobbies came and went, in and out of my life. When I was little, I was all about being in nature. Staying out of the house for as long as possible and trying to avoid curfew. Running amongst the trees, dancing through flower and fauna, and watching all the animals that would move about their daily lives. I’d dig my hands through the dirt in our garden, getting more dirt on myself than in the vegetable patch. Uprooting weeds, planting seeds while talking to them, welcoming them to their new home. Dousing them with the hose because more water means bigger plants right? That’s what 6-year-old me thought anyway, much to my grandfathers dismay. As I grew, I learned the ins and outs of the different flowers, vegetables, and herbs we grew. Knew what they needed and when.

Once I was a teenager, I didn’t want to be outside all that much, I’d rather be hunkered down in my room avoiding the world like a cave troll. Hissing at the sun like it had a personal vendetta against me. There I could be alone, away from the harshness of people. There I could lose myself for hours in music and paints. Get wrapped up in the fantasy worlds my brain spun on pages in pencil and ink. I immersed myself fully in these, working my skill and pencil to be able to improve daily. Constantly working on my craft. Who cared about homework when I could be painting dragons in graphite, chalk pencil and water color. Who cared about essays when I could fabricate characters with their own problems and lives, their fates hanging on the next sentence I created. I found it easy to lose myself in it, to get wrapped up in their lives more than my own. To get covered in swatches of color and charcoal like nothing.

All throughout these years, whenever I found that I was idle, I had towers of books to read through. Even went back to some of my favorites, so I could relive their plots. Fall into the romances between the characters and dream about it for myself. Lose myself to their fantasy worlds and how they lived their epic lives. Relishing in the sagas of adventure and laughing at their sarcastic remarks. I loved characters, hated others, acting like they were as tangible as my own friends. Imagining myself in their shoes, would I have done the same as them? Or would I have changed it up, you know, for the plot.

Then I graduated from college and had to be in the real world. Getting lost to the monotony of jobs and bills. I worked my body to the bone, drove myself to the point of near insanity with the hours and pressure that I constantly put myself under. Only to watch it all get wiped away by getting hit by a car. I was out of commission for half a year, and slowly worked myself back up. But it seemed too late by then, my job didn’t want me back, I had taken to long to recover. I moved to a different state. Started over with a clean slate. I tried to keep myself busy, find a new job. Managed to do so, but it didn’t feel like a good enough fit, that I wasn’t doing enough. I tried my hobbies, but they didn’t feel the same to me any longer. They didn’t give me the same passion that I once reveled in.

I began to stagnate. No matter what I did, nothing felt right. I found hyperfixations, tasks that would fill time, but they never seemed to last. I learned to work with resin, and make beautiful creations with it, experimented with colors and techniques, wanted so badly to do something with it, to sell my products. But with an oversaturated market and not having a full understanding of online stores, the boxes of cool items started to become little Christmas gifts. The rest of the items sitting in boxes on the shelf, collecting dust. The spark for painting never fully came back, but I did love doing these paint by numbers canvases for adults. Their intricate designs bringing color to life. I could lose hours of the day by following along with them, color by color and watching as the designs came to life in front of me. But even they lost their whimsy over time, the strain my body took, hunched over trying to find individual numbers didn’t seem overly worth it. Writing didn’t bring the same immersive effect anymore. Stories going unfinished, poems becoming dark entities that I didn’t want to see the light of day. Reading became mindless and boring, I began to find myself stuck on the same page or paragraph for hours. Rereading the lines over and over but still never having them set in. Gardening became a chore, something else that needed to be taken care of and handled. I didn’t like the dirt building up under my finger nails, or how sweaty the effort would make me.

I felt like my passion had died. No matter what I did, no matter how hard I tried, nothing seemed to work. I felt broken, unhinged. Like nothing could bring me that spark anymore. Doom-scrolling on my phone or watching hours of mindless TV began to fill the space that I used to use for creativity. It all began to blur together. And because of it, I felt the walls building up around me, blocking out the rest that used to bring me happiness. But I was happy, wasn’t I? Spending the days with my loved ones and pets, working and paying bills, living the same lives as everyone else. But it wasn’t really living. This was coasting. And now that the cycle has been broken by outside forces, I see that I was the one that let the passion die. I was the one that gave up on the hobbies I loved, all because some seemed childish, or others took up too much time. I let myself fall into the everyday mundane because I thought that was what was expected of me.

What I needed was time. Time to let the things set in, time to let myself relax and actually enjoy what I was doing, not just repeating the same thing over and over again. Now that I have my daughter, I see that. No day is the same with her. Every day is experiencing new things, new sounds and movements. Every day that I spend with her reminds me what it feels like to be joyful. To be alive and watch growth happen in front of your eyes. She loves the outdoors, so I find myself outside often. Soaking up the sun and getting burned in the process, but finding that I honestly don’t care. Enjoying the time with animals and weather. She doesn’t care about getting dirty, she cares about feeling new textures and the vibrant colors around her. She cares about living her little life to the fullest. I started to live like her, without much remorse. I dug my hands into the dirt again. The first time it didn’t bring as much joy as it used to, nor did the second. But by the third time of tending to the garden and watching what my effort brought forth, I found a peace I hadn’t known for some time. A relaxation and happiness that I had forgotten about.

With these blogs I have started to remember why I loved to write. To weave words on a page and pour your heart into something, whether people agree with it or not. It’s empowering and a release. I may not read as much as I used to when I was younger, but books are starting to be a little escape again. Being able to lose myself in the pages, even if just for a little while, is enough for me. For now anyway. I haven’t started up with painting or drawing again, but I know the skill is still there, it never fully leaves you. One day I know I will pick up a pencil or pen and scrawl something onto a page. Sketch out little characters for my daughter to laugh at, maybe even help her color them in. It may not be a thriving passion anymore, but it’s still something that brings me a bit of joy, and one day may bring joy to my baby girl.

Hobbies may come and go, they even may feel like they flat line. But they aren’t fully gone. You have to learn how they still fit in your life. Some may phase out, but others lay dormant, waiting for your passion to reignite. It may seem like it won’t, but it will. When you least expect it, it will. Sometimes it takes coaxing, sometimes it takes a little practice and a few tries, but it will still be there for you. You just have to give it the chance to be there. To let yourself be immersed in it once again, to remember why you liked it in the first place. Once you do that, it will come back. Just like riding a bike.