Childhood Activities

Growing up, I had a variety of interests that came and went. These included playing the flute, watching anime, reading YA novels, and playing the piano. Unfortunately, none of these stuck with me to late adolescence and adulthood, when more responsibilities and sometimes life overshadowed them until they became obsolete. An easier way to phrase it is that I outgrew some and simply lost interest in the others.

Flute

I played the flute between ages 9-13. When I was 13, I got braces and my embouchure changed. It wasn’t fun anymore when I had to put it more effort to play the same sounds. Basically, I was lazy and my mom was not happy about it one bit.

Piano

At the same time, I was also learning to play the piano, which is not so easily changed by the addition of braces. I enjoyed listening to Chopin, Rachmaninoff, and Liszt and I was more than happy to put in the time to learn how to play their pieces as well. However, when I entered high school and started running cross country and track, weekend meets quickly replaced my piano lessons until I stopped altogether. It did not help that my mom was the one invested in my musical development while my dad, who I primarily lived with, thought it was a waste of time. Without a piano at my dad’s house, I was unable to practice even when I stopped taking lessons and eventually lost my skills to time.

YA Novels

When I was younger, I loved YA novels such as the Percy Jackson series, the Selection series, the Throne of Glass series, etc. I loved reading in general and would always put in an order whenever the Scholastic Book Order pamphlets came out. I frequented Barnes and Nobles and even purchased an OwlCrate subscription at one point. Nevertheless, when mandatory class readings became more prevalent in high school, I didn’t have as much spare time to continue my hobby reading. Eventually, YA novels lost their appeal as I stopped being a “YA” and became more of an “A”. I still enjoy reading and I have more free time now, but now my library consists more of nonfiction, poetry, and classics instead of YA novels.

Anime

Lastly, I used to watch anime almost everyday. I feel like it’s a quintessential interest that most Asian Americans I grew up with had. In my mostly Asian middle school, I felt free to discuss the latest episode of Attack on Titan or whatever shoujo anime was popular at the time with my friends. It was a big part of my life until I got to high school, as most childhood hobbies go.

One of my first memories before I became a a freshman in high school was the Facebook group chats with rising sophomores. I distinctly remember one of them saying anime was lame and only losers watched it. As an easily influenced, susceptible teenager, I stopped immediately out of fear for my social life. And I never went back, even as anime became more mainstream and “cool” in recent years. It’s been said many times, but it’s always funny seeing the people who made fun of your interests years ago develop that very same interest years later. But maybe that’s just the way things go.

Conclusion

While I’ve departed from many of my childhood hobbies and activities, I’ve gained new interests in my adulthood. For instance, I run whenever I can. I enjoy taking care of houseplants. I read Webtoons now. Cooking and baking are two new hobbies I’m trying to incorporate into my life. I occasionally like to crochet. I’ve continued reading books and I even started practicing the piano on my own again.

I used to berate myself for being inconsistent with my hobbies and my seemingly low commitment to activities. It felt like a character flaw to me. However, I’ve realized that change is an inherent part of growing up. And that’s okay!