Two weeks ago, I turned forty-two (thank you, I am receiving your belated happy birthdays, and also receiving current ones for my husband, who turns forty-two today! Happy Birthdays all ‘round!)
What was I saying? Oh yes. I am forty-two now. In a recent conversation with my BFITWW (best friend in the whole world), she was burbling up about her new hobby, a pastime that morphed into a hobby that she hopes will become a regular event, calming and challenging and aerobic at once. (I don’t know why I’m being cagey about this. It’s golf. Her new hobby is golf). As I joined her burbles with a burble of my own — the joys of ice skating! — she texted, “This is our hobby era.”
We are coupled, middle-aged women with careers and kids, and the fact that we don’t go out partying or pining over unavailable partners anymore frees up a lot of time. I’ve always been a crafter, but in my middle age I’ve also become a breadmaker, a collagist, an ice skater, an amateur early human expert.
Except, while I grab on to some of these passions with an intensity that frightens friends or family, they occasionally wane, or snuff out altogether. For example, I was big into rock climbing for a few months there, dragging my daughter to the climbing gym while pretending it was her idea. And then, it fizzled. I didn’t want to go as much and I felt bad about this while also fretting over the money I spent on it.
More dramatically, I’ve been collaging less. As the collage page on my website will attest, I haven’t been gluing square to board at the frequency with which I once did. Some nights, I prefer to snuggle under a blanket instead of hunching over the coffee table with my many-colored squares. While I am not plagued with guilt about it — more like suffering a mild cold of guilt about it — I do wonder if abandoning hobbies just to pick up others means I’ll do the same with writing, one of my first loves and, based on my tax returns, a “hobby.”
What if, like rock climbing or daily collaging or even sourdough, writing fades from my life? I lose the habit of daily work on it, lose the tickle that makes me want to scribble out an observation or cobble together a narrative out of a splash of early morning free-writing?
The day may come, especially if the trees I am planting don’t bear fruit like I want them to, financially or otherwise. Will I judge myself? Maybe. Will I feel guilty about the time, money, self-identification, wasted? Probably. Will I find the next hobby that will set up the tingle in my belly and the page on my website? Definitely. If I’ve learned anything from my Hobby Era, it’s that there are plenty of hobbies to choose from.