Someone recently asked me what my hobbies are.  I think I gave a blank stare.  Then I said I like to write.  I couldn’t think of anything else.  Is that strange?  To not know, right off the top of my head, what things I enjoy doing?  It sort of through me for a loop that I was thrown for a loop.

I started thinking about it, and it is true that there aren’t a lot of specific things that I like to do “for fun”.  Oddly, though, when thinking about what I most enjoy doing, one-on-one conversations is what came to mind first.  I love to learn by talking to people – asking questions, challenging and being challenged, laughing, and being known enough to be laughed at – which is probably why most of what Tim and I do together is talk.

But I don’t know that conversing counts as a hobby.  So, after thinking for a while longer, I realized there are things I like to do…things like drawing and cooking and playing the clarinet and singing…they just don’t come to mind right away because, somehow, I feel like I should be good at the things I say I like to do.  If I hear that someone likes to paint, I assume they have some talent.  I worry someone would assume that I have talent – or that I think I have talent – if I said I like to do something.  I’m probably more likely to say that I “try” doing things, and to go out of my way to make sure that someone knows that I’m not any good at those things, than I am to say that I do any of those things as a hobby.

The other thing I realized is that there are things that might be considered “hobbies” that I do a lot of that I don’t necessarily enjoy, but do because I like the end result.  Gardening, or baking, or preserving food, for instance.  Not really my favorite things in the world to actually do, but I love what is produced, so I do them.  Does that mean they’re hobbies?  I wouldn’t consider them such, but maybe that’s just me.

Ugh.  Sometimes I wish my brain would just function normally.