THE MIDULTS
Annabel Rivkin and Emilie McMeekan
Q Dear A&E, At a dinner party recently someone asked me what I did for fun and it completely floored me. I am a 46-year-old mother of two, married with a successful career. But I realise that I can’t remember the last time I did something “fun”. I don’t even know what it means. I don’t why, but this has really upset me. How do I find my fun again? — Unfun A We slightly bridle at the idea of even calling you “Unfun” because we viciously relate. Where did our fun go? What even is fun? Your problem has rattled around our brains like a penny in an otherwise empty piggy bank because, well, that’s how so many of us feel. A bit empty, a bit rattly. And definitely not fun. So, first things first: you are not alone, Unfun.
You are a working, married mother of two, and for every beautiful thing your situation has given you, it has taken so much away too. You are buried in the avalanche of life and you don’t know which way is up. You also don’t quite know what you would choose to do for fun anymore because so much has been about serving or keeping balance at work and home. When we were much younger people, fun wasn’t such a conscious choice. We didn’t decide to have fun; it happened to us as part of the delicious merry-go-round of life.
There are two phases to finding fun again: start with organised fun. Yes, we know the idea of organising fun seems like an oxymoron, but we have to be realistic: given we can’t get up off the sofa, walk out of the door, get on a plane to the Maldives and never come back, there needs to be some planning.
Emilie’s husband recently told an assembled lunch party that going to a Secret Cinema Star Wars event had saved their marriage. With young children and two businesses to run, the idea of getting dressed up as rebel commanders ready to destroy the Death Star seemed both impossible and idiotic – not to mention tiring. But it turned out to be… fun! That one activity delivered the gift of play and connection and forged new memories. Book something. Book a few things. Allow the misses to be funny and the hits to be fun.
But beyond a day or night out, for the second phase of finding your fun you need to figure out a way to flourish and bloom once more. This is not to be confused with self-care: candles and baths have their place, but they won’t sustain you for the long run. For the flourishing, we are going to turn to the wisdom of Eve Rodsky, writer and organisational management expert, whose book Find Your Unicorn Space is about helping women reclaim their creative life.
Rodsky believes that in order to find your fun you have to re-access your creativity (if the word “creativity” freaks you out, replace it with “curiosity”). Your unicorn space. This doesn’t mean suddenly start taking up painting or pottery – although it could – but rather “the active and open pursuit of selfexpression in any form, and which requires value-based curiosity and purposeful sharing of this pursuit with the world. Like the mythical equine that inspired the name, it doesn’t exist until you give yourself permission to reclaim, discover and nurture the natural gifts and interests that make you you.”
Rodsky sets out three Cs to enable the pursuit of creative expression: curiosity, connection and completion. First, be curious. Try things on for size. Carve out the time and go on little dates with yourself. Try taking a course; the website Skillshare has thousands of creative courses designed to inspire and activate curiosity.
Next up, connect. Emilie has been going wild swimming with a group of working women since January. They get up at 7am on a Saturday and escape to the freezing water. Exercise is not the point – particularly in winter, when it is so cold you can only submerge for a few minutes; the emotional nutrition lies in the connection, the “Can you believe we just did that?” conversations on the way home.
The last C is completion. Don’t pick up a million projects and put them down again: focus on one thing and do it. Laser in on the “active pursuit” and finish what you start. It doesn’t have to be perfect – it doesn’t even have to be good. You need to be the leading lady in your own story right now. You have to be able to say to yourself: “I did this for me.”