How your hobbies can save your life

Not gonna say too much here, but wanted to just mention this while I was thinking about it.

You may have noticed an uptick in the amount of food-related posts lately.  Not that this is ever going to become a food blog (I just don't have the time) but this is an important point to make.

One of my biggest struggles the past few weeks has been in re-establishing my personal identity.  I've been a music teacher for 13 years, and prior to that, for 4 years I trained to become one, and for 3 years before that I knew what I wanted to do.  20 years is a long time to wipe away in a single afternoon.  I created quite a big vacuum in my sense of self, and we all know that vacuums...suck.

Yes, I'm now in a program to become a "professional writer," but I still don't entirely know what that means yet.  And judging from the readings in our intro class, most professional writers don't know either.  And even if I did, I've only been on this path for a month or so.  You can see the imbalance.

There is always a particularly difficult thing about transitions in life.  There's a moment when you know that the person you are now, with the recent memories, experiences, and the subtle ways that your job has shaped you...that person is about to be replaced by someone else, a new you that no one really knows yet.  (And yes, I know that changes like this happen every day, but I would maintain that most of those day to day changes are so small as to go unnoticed over a period of many years - they are not stressful drastic changes.)  But the difficulty is that this new person isn't here yet, so the old you is still the only person you have to fill the self.  It's very hard to go around being this person who's about to disappear, this dead man walking.  It's surreal, it's painful, which is why I managed to rip that person out of myself and stuff it in the storage room.  But what are you left with?

Ah, now we get back to the post title.  I have found my hobbies to be suddenly massively important to me in the past month.  I've always been interested in learning new techniques and trying new ideas in the kitchen, but all of a sudden it seemed vitally, critically important to do so, as if my very being depended on it.  I had dabbled in songwriting, but suddenly the ideas were pouring out of me, and I actually took that horrifying step of passing my work on to someone to collaborate with.  I developed new hobbies - I'm becoming a respectable amateur mixologist, and I love it - there's a lot to learn about there.  Steph has been flustered with my sudden obsession with the fact that I was boring and needed to have something interesting for her to say about me.  Well, I think I get it now.  Those hobbies are bridging me through a time when I am empty of an established identity.  My self image is being filled by these side interests.  And...I really think this is a good good thing.

I had an epiphany recently that if I were to list my top 10 favorite activities in this world, sauteing onions would make the list.  Such a mundane thing to do, but...it's about beginnings, possibilities.  Everything is just getting started, and it's go time.  It's a transcendent thing.  I've always loved cooking in my own amateur way, but I never viewed it as being so spiritual before, and I never would have, if the absence of the rest of 'me' hadn't allowed my cooking 'self' to expand to fill the shape of my soul.  And I'm grateful for that.  And if I didn't have these hobbies to dive into and explore...I don't know how I could have made it through the past few weeks.

So I'll keep posting about food because I need to.  I might even some day share thoughts on songwriting.  I'll for sure start talking about the drinks I make.  Might even dabble in album reviews - been thinking about that for a long time.  Because right now all that stuff is who I am...and maybe it always was.

God bless,
Matt