71. Taking up hobbies as an adult.

It's humbling to say the least.

Feb 06, 2023

Starting a new hobby as an adult is humbling.

We’ve been going snowboarding every Wednesday and so far it’s been a really cool and exciting experience as well as humbling. I’m not even that bad at it to be honest, the first run down the hill was more bum sliding and falling than anything else, but as soon as I got the hang of the hip movement and the shifting of weight from my toes to my heels, the second run was a whole other story. I actually “boarded” down the hill. Slowly but I did it.

The thing is, when you’re no longer a kid or a teenager, taking up new sports or activities can be really weird. When I used to play football I used to share training with my team, I had friends, we’d complain together and it was all a shared experience. Whereas now, as an adult, it’s all very different. I’m no longer seeing the same people every Wednesday and in a place that feels like it’s mine or a part of my life. I’m in an unknown territory practicing a solo-sport. Maybe football isn’t the best example because it’s a team sport but if I were to switch to horse riding, which I also did a lot of, I still feel this same weird feeling when comparing.

Every Saturday I’d spend all day at the stables helping to look after the horses, teach smaller kids lessons, clean the horse’s boxes… and I’d also ride. This is also a very solo sport but even though each kid was on a different horse and waiting while another person was being instructed in the class until it was their turn again, there was a feeling of belonging. This is the feeling that’s much more difficult to feel as an adult. I’ve not been snowboarding long enough to feel like I belong on the slopes, or that I know all of the trails like the back of my hand. I don’t recognise any faces in the canteen yet (apart from the ladies that work on the first two chair lifts who are lovely) but it all seems so far away. That feeling of belonging to a place, to a sport and to a group of people feels so much harder to reach as an adult.

When I was a kid, I was the typical girl that would see another kid, or even an adult, around the stable and walk up to them and start a conversation and automatically say you’re my friend. This, as an adult is way harder. It’s as if we don’t even think it’s a “thing” anymore. I’ve engaged in a few twenty second conversations with other people who were sat on the slopes gasping for air, we shared that feeling of “yeah, I’m knackered too” but it rarely goes much further than that.

Feeling like I belong somewhere or that the sport, place, equipment, vocabulary, or that the regulars doing the same thing as me are familiar makes me feel more comfortable. It makes me feel like I understand what’s going on and in adult-sport-life, this feels way more difficult to achieve. It almost feels like none of us have any idea about any of it but we all kind of pretend like we do. God forbid us all being like “yeah, here we are, sliding down some snow, I don’t know what I’m doing either. Wanna grab a coffee?”.

There are of course people who know what they’re doing and I’ve also seen a lot of groups of people my age who all go off together and look extremely comfortable in this freezing, snow ambient; but they all disappear once the chairlifts reach the top. The rest of us are the ones throwing ourselves down the blue and green slopes praying not to bang into each other who I’d like to feel closer to.

Maybe I just need more time, more weekly visits, more keeping an eye out for people I’ve seen before, more confidence and trying to engage a bit more in conversation.

But wouldn’t it be great if the unwritten adult laws could be more similar to those child ones like when anyone on the same set of swings as you was your ally and you were equals who could at any moment become friends by simply asking “so how old are you?”