It was pretty easy to describe myself when I was seven years old. Favorite animal? Whales. Favorite colors? Black and white, like Shamu. Favorite food? Shrimp, since that’s what whales eat. What did I want to be when I grow up? I wanted to be a marine biologist or I wanted to work at Sea World. For a few years I had wanted to either be a whale or marry one, but I think that by age seven I had figured out that this plan would not work. I spent most of my early childhood obsessed with whales; I read books about them and memorized facts about them that I shared with everyone, whether they wanted me to or not (did you know that killer whales are actually a type of dolphin?) We lived in Southern California for most of my childhood so I had plenty of opportunities to go to Sea World to visit my friend Shamu.

As I got older and approached my teenage years, my obsession with whales waned. I picked up a number of other interests and hobbies. I learned to cook and began to bake goodies or cook dinner several nights a week for my family. My piano lessons didn’t last very long, but I kept playing on my own. I was one of the only piano players in my ward so I played for just about everything that I could and had a reputation for being “musical”. I sewed clothes, put together jigsaw puzzles, and did crafts like paint-by-numbers and counted cross stitch. At school I joined the Friends of the Library and the Honor Society, and I competed on both the Knowledge Bowl and Geography Bowl teams. I also read compulsively and rode my bike to the library every week to check out a backpack full of books.

Then I went to college and found it hard to maintain some of my hobbies. I did find the College Bowl team and had the chance to keep going on the competitive trivia circuit. However, I didn’t have access to a sewing machine or piano and really didn’t have time for jigsaw puzzles or crafts. I also didn’t have much time to read for pleasure anymore; I majored in literature and got to read for class, but it just wasn’t the same. I got married during college and had a baby a few months after graduation; even though I was done with school and had more free time, I had a child to take care of and the GRE to study for. I spent the next few years in graduate school and taking care of small children. Soon, reading and cooking became the only hobbies I had left.

Several years later, I started seeing a therapist for help in dealing with anxiety. During one session we started talking about what I did to relax. I love to read, I proudly told him. “OK,” he replied, “what else?” What else? What else did I need to do? Wasn’t reading the best hobby you could possibly have? He gently helped me see that my life was somewhat out of balance and that too often I was using reading as an escape from other things, even self-care like sleeping and exercise. Ever since that moment, I’ve worked to bring balance back into my life when it comes to my hobbies.

I still read a lot, perhaps too much in comparison to how I spend my time on other things. As my kids have gotten older, I’ve started finding fun things to do together as a family, like jigsaw puzzles, gardening, and bike rides. They have a piano recital next week and I’m playing a duet with each of them. We are figuring out what our passions are as a family, besides books, of course.  I’m half-heartedly trying to develop a passion for more active hobbies like hiking or running, but my wimpy body keeps protesting. Maybe I just need to remind myself that I really don’t want to be a whale when I grow up.

What do you like to do for fun? How do you balance hobbies with all your other responsibilities as an adult? If you have children, do you have passions that you share as a family?