What Interesting Times
Oct. 29th, 2010 07:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nimthiriel Since moving out, I've found myself in an interesting state. Quite simply, I don't really feel passionate about any of the things I used to do (my job and my relationship with my fiancé being the two main exceptions).
After some discussing and thinking, it's come down to this: I have choice. For the first time, I feel like I have real choice in what I do and when I do it. I could take up any new hobby, any new interest I like. I can go out any time I like, to any place I like. It's an amazing sense of freedom, but the trade-off is that I'm having difficulty finding things which I am really really really interested.
I've re-joined St John, which I'm really liking. I'm doing something useful, I'm learning something every week, and I get to hang out with really fun people. But everything else has sort of fallen away.
The reason this is such a huge change for me is that I've never before felt I had this kind of choice. I had a lot of hobbies in school and I loved each of them, but it did get to the point where I felt that I could only make certain kinds of choices in what sorts of activities, and anything I wanted to try which was slightly left-of-field was done with extreme caution in case of disapproval from my parents.
I know they probably didn't think they were actually restricting my choices in this area after I was 18, but after so many years of conditioning they may as well have been just as strict as ever. Until recently, I would never have just randomly decided to go out for dinner on short notice, or randomly decided to go out to the beach just because it's a nice day. The experience of being allowed, and of allowing myself to do these little things is phenomenal.
So, I'm getting to know myself again. My world is full of possibilities and everything is out there, just waiting to be tried out and I'm not ready to commit myself to any other hobbies just yet. Though I do want to take up singing lessons. I think I'll try that next :-)
After some discussing and thinking, it's come down to this: I have choice. For the first time, I feel like I have real choice in what I do and when I do it. I could take up any new hobby, any new interest I like. I can go out any time I like, to any place I like. It's an amazing sense of freedom, but the trade-off is that I'm having difficulty finding things which I am really really really interested.
I've re-joined St John, which I'm really liking. I'm doing something useful, I'm learning something every week, and I get to hang out with really fun people. But everything else has sort of fallen away.
The reason this is such a huge change for me is that I've never before felt I had this kind of choice. I had a lot of hobbies in school and I loved each of them, but it did get to the point where I felt that I could only make certain kinds of choices in what sorts of activities, and anything I wanted to try which was slightly left-of-field was done with extreme caution in case of disapproval from my parents.
I know they probably didn't think they were actually restricting my choices in this area after I was 18, but after so many years of conditioning they may as well have been just as strict as ever. Until recently, I would never have just randomly decided to go out for dinner on short notice, or randomly decided to go out to the beach just because it's a nice day. The experience of being allowed, and of allowing myself to do these little things is phenomenal.
So, I'm getting to know myself again. My world is full of possibilities and everything is out there, just waiting to be tried out and I'm not ready to commit myself to any other hobbies just yet. Though I do want to take up singing lessons. I think I'll try that next :-)
