What do you say?
A few weeks ago, a co-worker asked me if I had a good weekend. My usual go to response is “it was ok. Nothing overly exciting.” She tried again, “Did you do anything fun?” Me: “Not particularly.” Her final response was something about my needing to get out, have some fun and relax. Get out and relax, I can do, but having fun… That’s a little harder.
I know what “fun” is and agree with Google:
noun: enjoyment, amusement, or lighthearted pleasure.
adjective: amusing, entertaining, or enjoyable.
verb: joke or tease.
However, knowing and experiencing something are two completely different things. I hear people say, “That was so much fun!” their voices full of excitement and their faces all lit up as part of an emotional response. By definition, I have fun too. I enjoy a lot of what I do, but I don’t have the emotional response that so many others do, which makes my life very monotone. Bueller… Bueller…Bueller…
Just before my 10th birthday, my grandma passed away. She had many health problems and (as I must have heard somewhere at the time) it was a blessing in disguise. Looking back on it now, it truly was. She and I were very close and I remember that day as if it were yesterday. Unbeknown to me, I closed down my emotions because I didn’t want to hurt. Over the years, the only time I felt an emotion was when I exploded from unknowingly bottling them up. I’ve recently realized that I associate emotions with an almost physical feeling. If my emotional response to something isn’t “over the top”, many times it doesn’t register with me as anything more than, “it was ok.”
So, back to that original question about doing something fun…
How do you tell someone that, in a nutshell, nothing is fun and life doesn’t hold a whole lot of joy without being depressing? I have no clue and hope to someday find an answer. Until then, “it was ok” will have to do.
