One of my first steps to building better Mondays is figuring out what it is that I actually enjoy doing, and what brings me happiness.

I have always thought that the key to figuring out what you really love is found through your hobbies, or what you choose to do in your free time, for no other reason than pure enjoyment.

Unfortunately, as I have gotten older, I have become extremely light on the hobby front, so I am now starting back at square one. I didn’t quite know where to start, so I turned to the person who knows me best.

My mom.

When I was getting ready to start this blog, I emailed my mom asking her to send me any pictures she had of me as a kid doing anything that might be a clue as to what kind of things interested me, or what my passions were.

I have heard that you can learn a lot about who you really are by remembering what you loved to do as a kid, before you had any awareness of outside influences. When we are kids, we don’t think about why we do things-we just do them, our main objective being to have as much fun as possible.

I was excited for my mom’s response, anticipating what little past Megan did to keep herself busy, and what deep insights she had to show her fully grown adult-self.

Well, I was not impressed with what past-kid Megan had to show me. My mom provided me with 16 images that best showcased my interests growing up. Here are the highlights:

Exhibit A: Animal torture

Exhibit B: Pretending to be something I wasn’t:

Just trying to fit in.

Showing everyone what an avid reader I am at six months.

Exhibit C: Nintendo

No time to concern yourself with fashion when you’ve got games to conquer.

Exhibit D: Gymnastics:

clearly I did this hobby anywhere I felt like it.

You get the picture. I didn’t exactly have a lot of past hobbies and interests to draw from. If anything, the pictures reminded me how all of my activities involved me being completely alone (notice the lack of people in any of the above images).

However, Exhibit D (or, ‘Gymnastics’) stuck out to me above all the others.

As a kid, I was obsessed with gymnastics. Even today, I’d be hard-pressed to find something in my life that I was more invested in. When I wasn’t at the gym, I was in a library getting my hands on anything and everything I could that was even remotely related to gymnastics.

I had loved the physical aspect of it, the thrill of mastering a new skill, and the sensation of flying through the air at the end of a tumbling pass. It has been over 16 years since I was a gymnast-but if I had ever had a passion as a kid, that was it.

That discovery just left me with a dilemma. Where does a 29-year-old former gymnast go to revive her love of gymnastics in a search to discover what her passion is?

Turns out, she goes to google. Which leads her to Lakeview Gymnastics Academy’s adult gymnastics classes (shockingly the only class of its kind offered in Chicago). Which also leads her to convince her 28 year old best friend and former gymnast to accompany her to prevent total shame and embarrassment.

This class is a story for my next post, but suffice to say that there is nothing quite like the experience of reviving an old passion 16 years after you have left it behind.

Like I said, if you don’t know where to start, try the beginning. Even if it requires the highest levels of humiliation.

Until next time.

Love,

Meg

Part two found here.