Hobbies and Me

I've had many hobbies over my short life.

I've been a writer, an avid reader, an amateur scrapbooker, a wannabe photographer, a blogger, a jewelry maker, a DIYer, a crafter, a makeup-er, YouTube dabbler and now, I've gotten into decorating my planner. These are only the ones I remember.

There has been a lot of self reflection in the past week and I've realized some of my 'ways'. This new hobby of mine has made me recognize a pattern that I'm not sure I like. I suppose it depends on how you look at it. 

A positive way to view my hobbies is that I'm interested in trying new things. That's awesome. 

A negative way to look at my hobbies is that I start a whole lot of them and quickly lose steam in pursuing them. 

Starting this new hobby has been really good for me. It's been a few weeks now and I still enjoy the process of building my week, adding pretty accents, keeping track of important things. I've never been good at being an adult and I feel like this task helps to keep me focused on things I would normally be scatterbrained about. Although, now that I've come head to head with my penchant of starting hobbies, spending money to support them only to fizzle out, well, who knows how long it'll last. 

As I was thinking of all of this, I started thinking of Bryan and his role in my hobbies. He's always been supportive of my writing. He built an entire library for my books and I can't even tell you how much money or time we spent going yard sale to thrift store to book store to pick up more books for me to consume. He was less supportive of the whole scrapbooking thing. When I was into being a photographer, Bryan and his dad bought me a camera, a photo printer, a ton of photo paper, various photographer supplies like a tripod and editing software. He has never tried to sensor my writing on this blog. He'll edit posts even when they may hurt him and he reads every post, even if he catches up a few at a time. I spent gobs of money on jewelry making and he rarely said a word. He bought me a light box and light kit so I could take proper photos of the items. He was not supportive of the DIYer thing, maybe because I'm not good at it in the least. But, when I had projects for him to do, he reluctantly did them... when he wanted to. He watched me etch glass and try to make wreaths and ornaments and all sorts of various projects that usually turned out horrible. 

He waited a really long time to call me out on my makeup spending. I definitely went overboard, trying to build up a makeup collection, and he was supportive. He was supportive (and still is) about Lauriana Cosmetics and I haven't lost my fire for that at all. I'm still in love with makeup and making other women feel beautiful. But when I jumped in to the business, I jumped all in. I spent a lot of money that I shouldn't have spent. He could have called me out at any time, but he didn't. He let me dive in head first. 

When he finally mentioned casually that perhaps I should curb my spending, I knew I had gone too far. With my new hobby, he's not as supportive. This one he doesn't "get". Which I understand and I'm not offended by. I put pretty stickers in a planner and track our bills and gigs and milestones. But I've been on top of everything and I think over time he'll see that it's helping me stay on track. I like that I'm putting in a little effort to make it pretty because I hope to be able to look back at my planners and see a slice of our life that week. As I began to get interested in creating content for YouTube, he helped me set up the light kit I bought and encouraged me to film. 

I think my desire to start and stop new things says a lot about me... but I think it says a lot about Bryan too. I've sunken a lot into hobbies, emotionally and financially, I suppose to try to find my thing. A few of them have stuck but as you can see, not many of them. 

Having this self revelation and tying it back to Bryan's reaction, or lack of reaction, made me feel extremely guilty. But it also made me fall a little more in love with the man I give such a hard time about everything, because he has had every reason to discourage my efforts, but instead he provided the freedom to find my "thing". Whatever it is that allows me to express myself. I felt a new level of appreciation for my guy. 

There really isn't a happy ending to this post, but I think it was an important milestone for me. I think coming to terms with the fact that I'm obviously searching for something I have yet to find is telling. I also have been more aware about my actions and I've curbed my spending in many areas. I've come face to face with not only some strengths, but some real weaknesses of mine. And I gained a new level of love and appreciation for my partner. There has been a lot of growth for me in the past year and a half. New perspectives and some soul searching. A lot of it has been great... a lot of it has been a bit...uncomfortable to confront. But in the end it's all been good. 

...Oh, I just remembered that I bought a sewing machine too. I've never used it. I'm sure I will some day.



[Sneaky message from spelling/grammar editor: I love you crazy hobby girl. Never stop exploring.]