Hobbies

I’d love to have a little set of hobbies I regularly return to. Unfortunately I find sustaining engagement in hobbies really, really difficult. I suppose because I want to engage in them, that very desire causes them to become demands – I want to engage in them, and to fill that want, I need to engage with them. Additionally at times, it may be a ‘want to want’, something I want to be in my PDA flow, but actually isn’t. At least, at the moment. Possibly also ADHD may be involved in these difficulties.

Something I manage to do on a semi-regular basis is knit. Last Christmas I knitted a wreath with the help of my mum, largely over the course of Christmas eve and day. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a lot of demand capacity at the time and was living in a very PDA unfriendly mental health rehab ward, so meeting the demands involved led to me running out of capacity entirely and being discharged back to an acute ward. Or perhaps, not so unfortunately, as that lead to me moving to the supported accommodation which is a much better fit for me.

At the moment, I’m trying to work on knitting squares to eventually be knitted into a blanket. It’s a very slow going process. I’m focusing on allowing it to be an imperfect project, accepting the mistakes I make as I go. I’m currently on my second ball of wool, having started in around July.

I’d like to spend time learning to draw, relearning maths and french, and possibly learn some basic BSL. I enjoy embroidery, thought it takes a lot of concentration and I tend to completely balls up eventually. Baking is another pastime that I’ve enjoyed in the past and would like to get back to. I like board games, but don’t have much space to keep many more than I already have (and playing the same ones gets old after a time). There’s a TTRPG called Ironsworn that can be played individually that I want to play through some time. I have a mirrorless camera and get a lot of enjoyment from photography, but rarely know what I could use as a subject for that art. I used to read endlessly, but now struggle to commit to reading, and I’d like to engage in writing more poetry.

So, we can see that I’m not short of ideas for hobbies. I’m just short on follow through and sustaining them.