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What happened to fun?

7/11/2017

4 Comments

 
Those of you who know me personally know that I have made most of my life choices in the last 17 years so that I honor my values: freedom, joy, connection, love.

Since 2015, I've made some truly risky and unexpected decisions, one of which took me to a new continent and a totally new way of living. It seems that that move presented more of a challenge than even I was prepared for. Unforeseen circumstances put me off track, and somehow I forgot how to have fun. Me! The person whose main priority in life is finding and enjoying the fun in it!

This loss has been affecting me every day, and needless to say it’s also affecting my fairly new marriage. In the course of investigating and working through the painful issues that are contributing to my lack of fun of late, I brainstormed a list of things I used to do for fun. It looks something like this:

Sara Hauber in love with bella ItaliaMe, happy and having FUN in Italy!
  • Meeting friends for a walk, bike ride, or a meal--typically one that we could walk or bike ride to. Three things about this were fun: outdoor activity, conversation/relating to people, and eating yummy food.​
  • Meeting friends for a movie, music concert, book reading, or other live event. I love good stories portrayed visually or verbally; I love music, especially when it’s live and I’m sharing the groove with other people; and I can thoroughly enjoy other live events as long as the crowd isn’t too big. There’s a line between “fun” and “scary group think” that I am careful not to cross.
  • Go out dancing to House music. This was always the most fun I would have had all week/month.
  • Go to Durham Dance Wave or the FlowJo for some ecstatic dancing, communing with my fellow dance freaks in the Triangle. Miss you!
  • Wandering alone (frequently very quickly) on foot with headphones playing music or Italian lessons, or wandering alone on my bike (always quickly) to parts or paths unknown, typically with snacks in my backpack or a restaurant/café as a destination. Maybe I’d bring a notebook and write some when I got there.
  • Heading to Lake Michigan and practicing yoga by the lake. Nothing beats the view and the peace of the waves. This was super fun until (inevitably) some pestering guy disturbed my peace. I eventually learned to deal with the interruptions.
  • Reading Italian and using my Italian dictionary while reading Italian.
  • Taking Italian classes or meeting up with other Italian speakers to speak la bella lingua.
  • Reading good books in which I learn something or I get so engaged in a story I can’t put it down.
  • Planning an adventure or a trip and then getting ready for and finally going on the adventure or trip! Typically alone. Many times to Italy. Always meeting new people along the way.​
  • Learning things about my city, its history, its architecture, and the people who live(d) there. And sharing what I know about the city with visitors.
 
What did I learn from this exercise? So many things. First, a lot of what I love involves being in communication with or in the presence of other people, typically friends but often just people interested in the same things that interest me.
 
Second, that my senses offer me a great source of fun: seeing beauty, hearing beauty, being in the presence of beauty—all of those things make me truly happy.
 
Third, I need and enjoy alone time, such as when I am reading and learning and interacting with music via dancing, etc. But too much alone time makes me feel disconnected and very, very unhappy.
 
Fourth, Italy and the Italian language have been a huge source of fun, happiness, and community for me the last 15 years. But then, so have Chicago and the Durham-Chapel Hill area of NC. Wonderful people abound on this earth, and I tend to find them and dance with them.
 
And finally, the greatest learning of all: I have had very little of the above sources of fun since I got married and moved overseas. And now comes the difficult part: Figuring out how to work back in most, if not all, of these sources of fun, happiness, and aliveness without alienating my spouse and my marriage, and without leaving the EU.
 
When J and I first thought about what our marriage would look like, it contained a lot of fun-sounding things—even being in Italy a LOT together. We share the love for outdoor activity, for eating (which I am currently having difficulties with, actually, due to a long-term commitment to healing my gut from antibiotic use and stress and sugar addiction), good movies/stories, and planning adventures.
 
Indeed, we planned to embark on 2 years of solid adventure and travel throughout Italy and beyond before the German government wrote to tell me that we had to scrap our plans (only after J had quit his job and we had moved out of his apartment in preparation for us leaving) and head back to Germany, homeless and jobless, so that I could enroll in 9 to 12 months of German classes within 3 months of getting that letter.
 
Since that event, I turned into Ms. Responsible. Somewhere in my youth, I learned that adults (married adults? “real” adults? I’m not sure yet) don’t have fun. They get serious about "doing what they have to do" and they work really hard to be responsible and to make security-through-money their primary goal. Earning it, saving it, worrying about it: Money is the only way to security (and, thus, happiness, I guess??).
 
When J left his job so we could go travel and volunteer for a couple years, and then we were told, “Nope, get your asses back to Germany right now,” we had no idea how to do it without his having a job. So I acted in the way I thought I should: I just worked extra hard to take care of both of us (hence the stress and sugar addiction that strongly contributed to destroying my gut). Ms. Responsible became my role, and Fun Adventure Woman was nowhere to be found. Now that J has a job again, he’s committed to making it work, which means he’s staying in Germany to do just that. No 2 years of adventure travel for us; none of the type of “fun” we had planned 2 years ago when we got married.
 
So where do we go from here? It’s a complicated question to answer, and we’re working on it every day. We seem to be getting closer to a satisfying agreement that involves me spending more time in communing with friends, traveling alone, meeting new people, learning new things, and being immersed in beauty, with as many opportunities to dance and hear music as I can find. If this agreement makes me happier and able to be the fun person he married—and the woman I miss so much--again, then it will be totally worth it for us both.
 
Keep your fingers crossed. And tell me, am I the only adult with “fun” needs? Has anyone else dealt with this kind of “crisis of the missing fun” before?


4 Comments
Nicole Walker
7/11/2017 19:28:54

I have also lost my fun! I work a couple of jobs (at least with fun people) and say yes to every committee or extra project offer. When I'm in a meeting and we have to introduce ourselves and then say something we like to do or tell what we did in the summer, I don't even know what to say anymore. If I have to come up with a 'hobby', I can't even remember what I used to do besides work. If I'm at home, I'm usually working or feeling guilty about what isn't getting cleaned or picked up or organized. The only thing I do for fun, is go to my other job, which is less stressful than my regular job. Then my other problem is, with all of the work I do, I never really feel like anything gets done!!! Not really being able to be fun and have fun with my husband has also been taking a toll on our relationship.

On a positive note, this past week, I have been getting a little bit back to myself, and it was pretty fun! I was trying to remember what my hubby and I liked to do together when we first met and realized it was usually something active or working out together (or at least at the same location). We did that a couple of times last week and we watched a couple of movies and it felt really good. I too, am hoping to work some fun back into my life. And then I need to figure out how to stick with it when August rolls around and I have to start working full time (plus) again.

Maybe I'll grab a tennis racket and a copy of The Cars Greatest Hits and go to a park. I remember some fun times with some really fun friends:)

Reply
Sara
7/12/2017 08:13:05

Thanks, Nicole, for your comment. We are definitely on the same page. Isn't it fascinating how easy it is to lose fun? I think our culture has a lot to do with it. Work is applauded, but enjoying oneself is "slacking." Horrible.

I'd say grab that racket and the Cars Greatest Hits! Indeed! I just heard "Hello Again" on Radiotunes (my favorite channel is, of course, 80s Hits) and was so happy to sing along. At least we were super fortunate to grow up in the era of amazingly wonderful sing-along-able music. I do think it's high time you revisit those tunes at the park.

We certainly did know how to have fun, back in the day. I think we are still those same girls inside!

Reply
Samuel Williams
7/12/2017 14:17:32

Your story sounds much like mine/ours. I have a fairly new job I like and that’s slowly starting to pay the bills. It is a stationary job however, meaning I am physically “stuck” in the area my wife and I live in and thus we cannot travel freely around the globe as we had planned when we got married a few years ago. Also, just like you, my wife is an expat and so far has not managed to make any friends over here. She’s able to work from pretty much anywhere, but currently works from home, so I am (by far) her main point of contact and although she never explicitly said so I have a feeling that sometimes that’s just not enough for her. And I totally understand. On top of that I’m a very introverted person and she certainly isn’t.

Along the way of getting and being married, moving here and there, trying various areas (even countries) to live in and lifestyles we have lost, or I should rather say forgotten, how to have fun together. There are quite a few areas that we had – and still have – really good times together, but due to various and complicated reasons we have stopped following quite a few.

Since this is increasingly putting stress on our marriage and although we clearly have no idea how and if this will work out, we have come up with an arrangement as of late that involves my wife travelling to her beloved country (Ireland) for weeks or even months at a time to places she loves and seeing old friends there. And getting to know new places and making new friends along the way. I’m positive she will benefit greatly from being surrounded by people and things she loves and fun – and especially relaxation – will return to her life. And although this obviously means that we will spend much time apart, I’m sure that overall our relationship will profit as well.

Keep your fingers crossed that, as my wife and I embark on this journey, we will rediscover fun, joy and personal growth that helps us to enjoy – and maybe even understand – life/our lives better. Personally as well as a married couple.

So, my advice to you would be:
Go to Italy. Dance. Do Yoga. Learn. Be wild!

And: Say goodbye to Ms. Responsible. That may be something you’ll have to do together with your husband though. Maybe make it a ceremony.

All the best – keep us informed,
Sam

Reply
Sara
7/13/2017 08:43:19

Sam, what a fantastic story! I can't believe how much you have in common with my situation. It really is wonderful to hear that my husband and I are not the only couple faced with such trying or difficult issues. But actually, maybe they are not so difficult after all? I had the thought after reading your comment that maybe these issues are dealt with by mature, forward-moving couples all the time, but we just don't hear about them. So your comment made my day.

It's also nice to know I am not the only woman who has had issues with finding a new circle of friends after moving abroad. Maybe age has something to do with it, though? If you two are over 40 like we are, then perhaps it just makes sense that finding our tribes of good, close friends is harder after a certain age, especially in a new country with new social norms. Not impossible, mind you. It's just--we miss what we had "back home" a little more than if we were younger. Perhaps?

In any case, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for validating what we are choosing to do by sharing your own similar story. And I LOVE your idea of having a ceremony to shed Ms. Responsible. I see a huge bonfire burning old business documents in our future!!

You'll certainly be hearing more about how J and I work through this incredible time in our lives/marriage. And I really hope you'll keep us posted on your situation, too. (And please tell your wife that Ireland is one of our favorites, too! Talk about the easiest place in the world to make friends. You didn't say where you moved to, but anyplace is harder to find new friends than Ireland.)

Once again, thanks for sharing. My fingers are crossed for us all!

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  • About Sara
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