I used to love to try different restaurants. Now that I am older and married, I find that it’s cheaper and healthier and better for my waistline to simply cook for myself and my wife at home. I also used to enjoy staying up late and watching old movies. I wish that I could still do that, but I work a lot of weekend nights so by the time I get back home and showered up I am usually pretty tired, and NO I do NOT like to sleep all day like I did when I was a much younger fellow.
SO what activities that you used to enjoy doing have you ceased and why do you no longer do it?
Reason: NC Soft shut it down, refused to sell the rights and laid off the entire studio that made it for no apparent rational reason anyone can figure out. Besides the game itself being gone, it’s left me more than a little gun-shy about MMORPGs; I don’t want to invest that kind of time and effort into something that can be taken away so unpredictably. Plus I’m unaware of anything else that really compares to CoX, and much of what made it so good - the community - is gone.
Dancing. All of my best friends have essentially disappeared in the last year (one’s got his first girlfriend in years, another has become a party girl who just goes out drinking with her new drinking buddies every night, and the last is in jail), and I don’t really feel like going out on my own.
Overall, nearly all of my enjoyable pastimes went by the wayside as I finished school, and where I thought I would get back into them once I graduated, I haven’t been able to. I figured last year would be the year I got back into video games, reading for pleasure, etc., but I couldn’t muster the enthusiasm to do so. So, not quite up to the theme of the OP’s topic, but close.
I used to play in gaming groups quite a lot, mostly Dungeons & Dragons. However, nowadays I have more bad days when I can’t get out of the house. I can’t make the commitment that I’d need to make in order to be a good player.
I used to write a travel blog about a particular historic U.S. highway. Then, my boyfriend passed away one day after we came home from a vacation on that road.
Actually your response IS up to the original theme that I proposed. I especially identify with you regarding your idea that when you “finished school” that you would be able to get back to all those activities that you enjoy. I work two jobs and one of them is seasonal. When the season ends in December, I often used to make plans for the early months of the new year to socialize and work on other projects. Unfortunately LIFE keeps getting in the way of those things.
I also used to love to try different restaurants. I’m now doing Weight Watchers and if it’s a choice between eating out or losing weight this week, I’ll go with the weight loss. To compensate, I have increased my coffee shop trips and if I stick with the main chains (Starbuck’s, Costa and Nero here in the UK) then I can easily point up a drink and slice of something nice.
Racquetball, which I’ve been doing steadily for decades now.
My racquetball club folded, and then I lost access to a facility where I could use the racquetball courts. Not to mention that all my partners have moved away or dropped out.
There’s a huge but overcrowded fitness place that has racquetball courts, but they’re like an afterthought, and the place is expensive. Part of the problem is that racquetball was a fad, albeit a long-lived one, and it seems to have about run its course. A lot of places have closed besides the one I used to use. But I love the sport, and it gets me moving as no other activity does.
I used to love getting pedicures and would treat myself to one every spring and fall, and sometimes before a half-marathon. But ever since my Wedding Pedicure (August 2011) when the esthetician accidently sliced my toe with a glass nail file I’ve never had another one.
I spent about 15 years building primitive bows and arrows. Mostly experimental and doing research on various woods and styles. Many people think I have proably built more than anyone on earth. Last year I quit cold. After being asked to publish a chapter in a well known book series and several articles as well as some TV work I found I hated attention and just enjoyed working alone in my workshop undisturbed. Publicity killed the passion I had.
I sold my guitar/speaker/effects boxes this past summer. I could play the notes just fine (mostly) but not make music, if that makes any sense whatsoever.
I would bike to work on a regular basis even in winter. THen I fell on the ice and broke my wrist…
but the real reason, is that I now carpool with the wife, who drives by my work on the way to hers…I don’t have the motivation to bike when she drives right here anyway.
Spending a lot of time on Facebook. I stopped when my computer died, and have not taken it up again. I used to enjoy it but felt guilty wasting so much time. Now I get a lot more sleep!
I was going to say exercising, which I have also stopped doing, but it goes beyond that. I haven’t been camping or hiking or even to a picnic on the beach in the last year or so–and I live in a place where I should be able to do all of those things almost any day of the year.
There are two main reasons, I think. First, I took a new job, which I like very much and which took a long time to find, but, which has a longer commute than I have ever had. The second is that my kids have hit the teen years, which means that I don’t exercise or have a social life, but have become the means for them to exercise and have a social life.
