The Lighter Side of: Losing Activities

Losing hobbies or modifying interests is something everyone has to do eventually.
It is this idea of 'changing with the times'. Sometimes your body breaks down and forces you to give up or change the way you enjoy certain activities. Sometimes your interests change. Maybe you have lost your love for something, or maybe you have gone as far as you can go in one activity without putting 100% of your time into it. Perhaps your current hobbies are becoming too expensive to maintain.

Whatever the reason is, we all, at some point or another, must change how we do things or which activities we eventually find love with.
It is rarely easy, but trying to view these times as opportunities is your best tool.

The lighter side of losing activities is that you get to explore other sides of your personality that have been dormant.
For me, losing physical activity was like losing a massive chunk of my entire being. Activities like volleyball, working, singing regularly on stage, softball, and even just going to the gym, these activities were how I defined much of myself. Losing those was a really tough part of my life.
BUT - it meant that I had a lot of free time all-of-sudden. It was, at first, this big slap in the face called 'BOREDOM'. I hate to be bored. So I eventually found new hobbies and activities to fill my time.
I fell back in love with writing.
I modified physical activities to suit my body.
I started learning how to draw, learning how to paint, finding little craft and art projects that I could enjoy. I took my newly learned skills and adapted them into projects I loved. I began creating images and stories that I was immensely proud of.

The one great thing about losing activities is that it opens up and entirely new world of activities. Activities I never would have even attempted if I hadn't been forced to explore. Activities I knew nothing about. Activities I would have never considered if I had been physically capable of continuing an intense physical life.

So I haven't exactly lost anything. Instead of the lost hobbies being seen as a forcibly emptied space, I filled up that space with something new... A substitution. When it comes to interests, I will continue to fill that space with new things until I really hit my stride and find something I love as much as volleyball.