I used to stretch a lot more than I do now.
When I was young, I was a dancer, and in dance, flexibility is key. I wasn’t the most flexible kid at my studio by any means, but being in dance meant I was stretching about every single day, trying to push my muscles as far as possible.
As a kid, it was fairly simple, but as anyone who paid attention to their flexibility after puberty knows, puberty kills flexibility if one isn’t careful.
Plus, around puberty for me (though honestly a bit later, because I hit puberty quite early), I also quit dance. So I really, really lost my flexibility from then.
Now, it’s not really the flexibility I’m worried about today, to an extent. Of course, researchers say flexibility is important throughout one’s whole life.
But my worry when it comes to trying to come back to stretching is about choosing something and sticking to it.
I’m one of those people who jump at the sight of any hobby, only to fall out of it not too long after. Drawing, crochet, cosplay, working out… the list goes on.
It’s not that I don’t want to do any of those things anymore. But life–and my brain–gets in the way, and I keep on flitting between one hobby and another. Even video games aren’t immune, and don’t get me started on television shows and movies.
Writing has been the only thing that has avoided this vicious cycle. Maybe it was because I started writing earlier than the rest of those doomed hobbies, or maybe it was just always destined to be the hobby I stuck to for a very long time. Either way, it’s meant that writing has been pretty much my only day-to-day hobby these past few years.
And now that I’m getting ready to self-publish, I realize it’s time to try to diversify my hobby-habits.
Stretching, I’ve found, has been a good place to start. I know stretching isn’t really a hobby, but it is a habit, and being able to stick to something is a good place to begin my journey for more consistent hobbies. Plus, stretching has been marginally helpful in not making my aches worse (from the ever terrible posture of being a writer), and it’s something I can do at any time.
Now, has it been perfect? Not really, as I hadn’t stretched in a few weeks when I realized this blog post was coming up on my schedule. But it’s a start to be someone outside of just my writing, even if I know I must seem like the least flexible person in the world when I do it.
So, here’s to working on hobbies, to trying to take a bit better care of myself, and to sticking to one thing.
Here’s to the wonderful, low-pressure world of stretches.
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