6 min read
I’m taking a short break from work today to do a short journal entry while on the treadmill. The last two days have been WILD with about 22 billable hours of work on Monday and Tuesday combined. So here we are around midday with a new entry!
Also: super exciting thing I noticed partway through this entry (thank you ADHD): this entry marks an entire month since my first entry! It’s so cool to see how my journaling blog has evolved since that first version.
This is a deceptively tricky question for me to answer because what I enjoy changes based on the kind of day I’ve had, what I’ve been doing lately, and what the my partner or friends are doing. The question asks “usually”, so I suppose none of that really does matter, huh? I’m still having a hard time thinking about this one, though.
Let me take a short detour to discuss why I think this is tricky for me. Trust me, this will all make sense (I hope). People sometimes ask what your goal in life is; this is another question that I struggle with. It also calls back to an earlier journal entry (not included here yet) about my purpose in life. I don’t really have any sort of grand plan or large overarching goal for my life other than to be happy each day; take care of myself, my partner, and my chosen family; and to plan for the future with a solid retirement investment. A lot of what I do is tied up in the work I do, and I know it’s starting to sound like I’m a workaholic, but I promise I’m not. I suppose a better way to put it is that what I do for work and what I do for fun aren’t that different.
Something else people like to talk about are “special interests”, mostly in the context of Autism and ADHD. Coding, for lack of a better word, is one of my special interests. I like the problem solving aspect of it and I like being able to see a finished product that works and is pretty cool. After all, developing something, even a small script, is a time investment and it feels really good to see that investment pay off. I’ve written about My Budgeting App before a little bit and it really is something that I’m proud of, but it really is not that different from the stuff I do at work. So yeah, it’s a bit tricky to separate my hobbies from work, but that doesn’t mean I am obsessed with work. Ask my partner: I love it when 5 rolls around and I can turn off my work devices.
So here we are: talking about life goals and comparing them to what I enjoy doing most of the time. I’m linking these together because one tends to feed into the other, right? It’s not unusual for your hobbies or interests to be related to a bigger life goal, even if that goal is to learn more about that hobby. But! The more I think about this, the more I consider that a big part of my life goals really are just enjoying my time with my chosen family and close friends. This is especially true when you consider that I’m a pup and a lot of what I do with my friends is pup and furry adjacent. So let’s roll with this idea: I really enjoy spending time with the folks I love. Naturally, the first person that comes to my mind is my partner.
She’s someone I love so much for many reasons. In fact: I was just telling her this morning how my coworkers loved meeting her and commented about how her and I are so good for each other. I attribute this to us having a lot of strange and minor things in common. These are the sorts of things you would never think of asking someone, they just naturally arise from living together. One of them is how we both have weird texture things with food. There are lots of others, but I’m honestly struggling to think of any at the moment. I promise, though, they are there!
Today’s entry is full of tangents and I am so proud of you for making it this far. Back to the topic at hand: I enjoy spending time with people like my partner because we like to do similar things. However, there are also a lot of things that we don’t necessarily enjoy doing together, and that’s okay! Sometimes, one of my favorite times together is when we’re both just chilling next to each other doing our own stuff. Pro-tip: you don’t always have to be attached at the hip or do the same thing as your partner to spend time with them. With that said, we really enjoy watching commentary style videos on YouTube, watching silly animated things on Hulu, and watching documentaries, too. A lot of them are just so interesting that we end up pausing the video dozens of times to comment about what’s going on in the video. It’s funny how some of those discussions help us learn more about each other and ourselves. And that’s likely the root of why I usually enjoy watching stuff with my pup or my partner, or both. It’s time we spend together and get to learn more.
There are others things I usually enjoy like gaming. It’s something I can do by myself, but it’s also something my partner and I can enjoy together. And then there’s all of puppy play and sports gear related stuff, but that’s for another journal entry. I don’t think I’m brave enough to write a whole essay about that side of me, not yet.
I think I’ve actually answered the question now and it only took me about 950 words to do so. As they say: it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey. I hope you’ve enjoyed going with me on this meandering journey through my tired mind.
Comments