I Don't Remember When I Stopped Having Things I Was Excited About.

Someone asked me recently what I do for fun.

I paused. Not because I didn't understand the question. But because the answer took longer to arrive than it should have.

I used to know immediately. There were things I looked forward to. Things that were just mine. Not useful. Not productive. Not for anyone else. Just things that made the week feel like it had something in it worth getting to.

I can't tell you exactly when that changed. There was no moment. No decision. No morning I woke up and thought — I'm done with that now. It just slowly stopped being part of the week. And then stopped being part of the month. And at some point I stopped noticing it was gone.

Responsibility filled the space instead. Quietly and completely. Work that carries over into evenings. Messages that arrive on weekends. A mental list that never fully empties. And when there is space — actual, unscheduled space — it feels unfamiliar enough that my default is to fill it with something useful. Something that can be justified. Rest that looks productive. Leisure that has a point.

Even the things that were once just enjoyable have been quietly reclassified. Reading becomes self-improvement. Walking becomes exercise. A conversation becomes networking. Nothing gets to just be what it is anymore. And somewhere in that reclassification, the enjoyment left. Because the moment something has to earn its place in my day, it stops feeling like mine. It becomes another thing on the list. And a thing on the list is never the same as something I was looking forward to.

It doesn't feel like loss in the way loss usually feels. There's no grief. No dramatic absence. Just a kind of flatness where something used to be. I'm functioning. I'm managing. By most measures, things are fine. But fine is a low bar I've quietly accepted as enough. And the weeks start to feel similar to each other in a way that's hard to name. Not bad. Just indistinct. Like I'm moving through them rather than living inside them.

I think about the last time I felt genuinely excited about something that was coming. Not a holiday that needed planning. Not a milestone that needed achieving. Just something small. Something that made Tuesday feel different from Monday because it was there. I have to go back further than I'd like to find it.

I think it happens like this: I start saying yes to the things that matter — career, family, responsibility — and I stop saying yes to the things that don't have a clear justification. And that seems right. That seems like growing up. But what I didn't realise is that the things without justification were doing something important. They were reminding me that I existed outside of my obligations. That there was a version of me that wasn't useful to anyone. That just was. And without that, everything else starts to feel heavier than it should, because I'm carrying it without anything underneath that's just mine.

I noticed all of this properly while watching someone talk about something they loved. Not important. Not impressive. Just something they were genuinely lit up about. And I noticed two things at once. One — I couldn't remember the last time I looked like that talking about something. Two — I couldn't think of what it would even be about. Not the absence of a specific thing. The absence of the category entirely.

That stayed with me longer than I expected. Because it wasn't sadness exactly. It was more like seeing an old photo of myself laughing and not being able to remember what the moment felt like anymore. Oh. That used to be there.

I don't know what the answer is. I'm not sure there's a clean one. But I think the first step is just being honest about it. Not dressing it up as being busy or being responsible or having priorities. Just admitting, quietly, to myself, that something went missing. And I'm not entirely sure when.