I’ve forgotten how to play

We need to lighten up. It seems that all Steve and I do lately is work, clean the house, and watch TV. Now, I lurve me some big-ass TV (thanks generous wedding guests), but giggling over a crystal-clear image of Family Guy isn’t exactly playing. We might chase the ferrets around, or play Farkle or Yahtzee or Monopoly every once in a while, but other than than, it’s work or veg.

I brought this problem up to Steve last night as we went to bed. He came up with all sorts of ideas, including joining the Eagles Club  (Uh, no. ) We could take a class, but what to take? We could find a group at church, but that would mean actually going to church on Sunday mornings, which we’ve never been able to do regularly. He wants to learn to skydive, but to be honest, I’ve done it once and it was fan-fucking-tastic, and I don’t want to do it again. Especially not on a regular basis.

I didn’t have a single idea. Odd, for me–a person who is always full of ideas. And then it hit me: I wasn’t great at playing when I was a kid. No wonder I’m struggling with the idea now.

I have forgotten how to play.

I have gotten so caught up in my own mind games about “success “and “perfection” and “making a difference” that I don’t know how to do anything just for fun. Steve’s the same way: all of his hobbies, except for running, have had something to do with making extra income (flipping cars and real estate) or winning (the old KBCO Cardboard Derby, which he actually did win).

I’ve never been a silly person. I can laugh, and I love to laugh, but on my own I’m rather serious. I’m often the last person to catch on that someone is teasing. This is why I married Steve: He’s funny. He cracks me up. I keep asking him to guest-blog here to lighten this space up too. Aren’t you dying to read his insight on Hero Abilities That Don’t Work (Flatulence Man, for example)? I am.

Back to play: One of the reasons I had such a hard time with Lauren in the baby phase of her life was my inability to play with her. God forgive me, but Barbies and My Little Ponies are BORING. I did play with these types of toys as a kid, but not religiously. The play I remember most involved adventures in imagination:

• Charlie’s Angels with Linda–I was always Bree. We had a huge binder of clothes options clipped out of the Sears and JC Penny catalog, and would start our adventure game by picking out our outfits for the day. Then, we’d make bombs out of gum erasers and sewing pins–the kind with the colored balls on the end. We’d figure out who we were trying to save, then go save them.
• Hide and Seek–maybe not an adventure game per se, but playing with the neighborhood kids on summer nights was scary and thrilling.

But mostly as a kid, I went to dance class and I read books. Reading was my play–immersing myself in a different life and a different location, living vicariously. Steve, on the other hand, grew up mostly on his grandparents’ property in a semi-rural part of Littleton. He spent most of his freetime doing juvenile delinquent activities. (I also lurve me a bad boy turned good.)

I’ve been wracking my brain about what I think is fun. We don’t play sports. Please, don’t torture me with anything that requires any kind of eye-hand coordination. Steve’s not a dancer; we’ve already gone down that route, and dancing is my main form of play. We both like board games, so we’ve thought maybe we could start a board game night or a Wii night.

What we also need is friends. The friends Steve had when I met him have fallen away. I see my best friend Laurel once a month or so (not often enough). It’s SO hard to make friends as grownups, even harder to make couples friends. It would be great if we had neighbors we liked or even spoke to but our neighbors are all weird, mean or nuts. Steve’s tried to make friends at work, but his weird in-between positions have made it tricky, and none of his coworkers are married so that puts the kibbosh on making a couple-friend there.

I don’t mean this to be a whiney post. I’m not whining, seriously. We’re flummoxed.

How do you do this as grown ups? How do you re-learn how to play, and make time for it anyway? How do you make friends?

Growing up, my parents always had good friends, mostly neighbors. In fact, they are still friends to this day with most of them. The adults all had kids in common–kids on the same block, kids on the same sports teams–so they became friends over their kids and somehow, all the time spent together, vacationing together, on the sidelines at football games gelled it.

I want that. I want to play with Steve, with our kids. I’m pretty good at my own versions of play, namely dancing (because if I go back to childhood and look at what brought me the most joy and pleasure, dancing’s it).

We just want to have fun. What do you do?