Haven’t pursued...

Haven’t pursued or haven’t mastered is what I need specific clarification on. For you see, I have pursued a number of things, activities, hobbies, sports yet nothing has ever really stuck around long enough to be considered a defining characteristic of myself.

As a child I was given piano lessons, in choir both church and school, ukulele club in elementary, modeling school, youth softball, colorguard-the dancing kind not the stuffy ROTC. As a young adult I guess my hobbies delved into movies or just ‘hanging’, maybe smoking dope was a hobby later to become a medicinal function rather than a from time to time.

Later on in the actual adult stages of adulthood, one could joke my hobby became getting married or church activities, mission projects, getting my kids to their respective places on time and remembering which place they were to be. I worked then. My free time, I wanted to grow shit on Farmtown or Farmville when those games were such a hype. Facebook was a hobby…infested into my mind and hands often whilst ignoring anything around me. Sleep was considered a hobby because that’s also what I did should free time plague me. But alas…years later, I quit my job. My career. That’s another journal for another year. I guess I can reflect it has been since around that time circa 2017, when I began sewing. Sewing-something to occupy my hands and expedite my time. I was in such a dark hole, chained to my bed with depression. Of all of the things I made, not many came to completion.

Fast Forward

Fast forward to the COVID years, I hit a point in my understanding where I realized my time here is very very short. Call me the crazy Armageddon lady but I simply believe our time is about up here. Maybe it was this very idea that queued me into realizing we were put here to soak in as much knowledge as we possibly can. What opportunities have I taken advantage of? What has allowed me to crutch myself away?

mistress of nothing

There is no doubt I am a master (mistress) of nothing but I am quite a bit a part of everything I touch. Everything I read. From the ukulele I picked back up and know just enough…to the harmonica with blue painters tape across the top to display the notes (that I incidentally never look at, only hear the sound-that’s not it, try again, not it either, how about this note…yep that’s it), it doesn’t seem to matter when I pick up my littles from the bus stop and the other children follow me down the sidewalk as though I were some modern mommy pied piper of San Antonio, then there’s painting, collaging, stickers-a commitment issue there as my angst disrupts when considering the finality, paper crafts-origami or as I call wadding up paper balls, fabric, canvases, pick around on the ivory keys learning a new technique I call ‘learn the middle of a song”.

I have sat down to learn many songs, often leaving the activity before getting past the intro.

Start in the middle, isn’t that the best place to settle into?

What is making me smile?

My newest hobby and one I aspire to hold onto, is to play.

Daily I ask myself, have I played today?

What have I done to release through my creativity?

What is making me smile?

This week my hobby has been to create an atmosphere of Christmas. This is what is making me smile right now and

isn't that what a hobby truly is?

Something that brings a sense of accomplishment?

A sense of joy?

Something that sparks a curious mind?

Playtime is a priority

When this playtime is taken on as a priority, our minds expand and can deliver more productivity in other areas of life. It gives life a sense of purpose; other than God yet a part of Him by using what He has given-the mind that wishes to expand.

Checking off tasks one by one as a part of routine, employment, daily life, parenting, “wife-ing” can be so laborious and draining. I have seen myself deplete when those tasks are the only substance to my life. Yet when I make time to play…the world is my puppet stage and I feel as though I am a part of something that I belong to.

Living is a verb

So what if I end up looking like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins, hoisting a number of instruments around and playing every one.

I look to my own CV-Curriculum Vitae-

what have I learned?

What have I become?

What will come next?

Current hobby: Living-an active verb.