I forgot what I liked

Someone asked me what I do for fun, and the silence was so loud it started this whole newsletter.

Sitting at a coffee shop, cappuccino in hand, and as I watch the foam in my cup dissolve into the espresso below, I feel like doing the same. I’ve just been asked “so, what do you like to do for fun?” and finding an acceptable answer feels like trying to grab a hold of the steam rolling off my mug.

“Work” is clearly not an acceptable answer to that question.

“Reading”? But then they’ll ask what I read, and I’ll be forced to admit I’ve read nothing but self-help books for the last year.

“Walking”? Too boring.

“Cooking”? Girl, be so for real, you make the same 3 meals on repeat.

I am in my late twenties — There must be something I do for fun?!

By this time, the person posing the question has surely noticed my floundering. I take a self-conscious sip of my coffee and glance around the room, desperate for inspiration.

I come up empty.

I hear myself (attempt to) crack a joke about how “the grind really doesn’t stop,” and I feel my heart give a little sigh at how truly sad that sounds.

I quickly change the topic.

But the feeling of that moment stays with me.

What do I do for fun?

I continued to ask myself this for the next week. As I went about my daily life, I was now scrutinizing each hour, searching for any shred of voluntary enjoyment. Unfortunately, there was little to be found.

Okay, forget DO. Hypothetically, what is fun to me? What brings me joy???

Silence persists.

And that’s the wake-up call.

Life gets busy, and slowly but surely, leisure activities erode to make room for the productive, but when I realized I couldn’t even identify the activities that sound fun to me, that’s when I knew I needed a change.

Photo by israel palacio on Unsplash

How did this happen? I used to have fun…

For roughly 15 years, I dedicated my life to the sport of volleyball. During my D1 and professional career, every day was planned out for me. When to wake up, where to go, what to do, how to eat, and even how to think. We had an app that scheduled out every minute of our day. Not kidding.

And then.

Somewhere between being an athlete with an assigned schedule and an adult with an optimized one, the "what do I want" got replaced by "what's next on the list."

The fun had vanished. Consumed as fuel in exchange for ~high performance~.

I stopped having fun because it felt unproductive. Unearned. I would allow myself time for free play after, and only after, I had checked all the other required boxes for the day that would make me 1% better.

The younger me, who is still following the app schedule in her head, says, “Once the productivity goal is met for the day, THEN you can do what you want.”

Most days, the goal post of productivity gets moved, and I never fully allow myself the time to find enjoyment.

So I started asking a different question

When I reach a reasonable stopping point in my list of tasks (let’s be honest, the to-do list never really ends) and have some spare time, I ask myself, “What sounds fun to me right now?”

And in that moment, maybe the honest answer to that really is couch rotting, because sometimes life is a bitch, and it’s all just a little too much.

But also, sometimes the answer to that question is pulling out the coloring book and markers I haven’t touched in years. Or dusting off my bike and heading outside for a ride.

Not another cardio session tracked and measured down to the BPM.

Just a bike ride. For fun. Nothing more.

Riding that bike is what the child in me wants to do. Not the optimized high-performing volleyball player. The girl who liked the sport before she even knew how to keep score.

I realized I had turned even joy into a metric. I was filling the gaping ex-athlete-sized hole with the morning routine, the 10K steps, the optimized everything, and discovering that my "fun" had been colonized by my discipline.

Authenticality is an ongoing answer to the “fun” question.

I am here to learn. Learn who the authentic Tina is. Learn what she likes, dislikes, and really believes.

And unlearn. Unlearn the habits, expectations, and squashed desires from 15 years of discipline.

I have not “found myself”, but I am searching and tired of pretending otherwise. If you’re still reading this, I suspect you might be too.

Remember, we are not lost, we are waking up.