GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE FUN


Fun is in the experience of the participant. Therefore I shouldn’t be surprised that many of the things I find fun tend to bewilder others.

When I was young walking to the Santa Fe Public Library was fun. Reading a dozen books a week was fun. My mother was not thrilled that I always had my nose stuck in a book. Hiding out from my mother was fun. Climbing cliffs was fun. Digging caves, building tree houses, and riding my bike was fun.

School was not fun. The only fun I had at school was taking tests that felt more like doing a series of challenging puzzles than work. Skipping school was more fun.

Social interaction has not been fun at any stage of my life. After I was married when I had to visit my in-laws I used to sit in the corner of their living room doing crossword puzzles when people dropped by. My mother-in-law did not understand my antisocial attitude. Nor did I understand how rude my behavior was until years later.

Social occasions are still not fun for me. People tell me that socializing is probably good for me, so I participate from time to time. I put in my hour of making small talk then I disappear. As a lifelong introvert I get my energy from being alone. Extroverts get their energy from being with people. Most people are a mixture of introvert and extrovert.

Scrabble is always fun. Tournament Scrabble is more fun even though I lose more games than I win. But I enjoy the process of playing and being challenged. Very little small talk, and I get endorphins, those feel-good hormones, from playing Scrabble.

Driving used to be fun for me. Not so much anymore. I still enjoy road trip movies. I even enjoy car commercials; the moving background soothes my restless spirit. Riding in any thing that is moving is fun for me. Even escalators are fun. I love the idea of hang gliding and bungee jumping and The Amazing Race on TV.

Computer games have been fun for me from the beginning. I enjoyed introducing several of my grandsons to computer games. Their parents never forgave me even though one of the grandsons now works for Microsoft. I still enjoy computer games.

Writing is something I’ve done for a lot of years and it seldom used to be fun. It was part of how I earned my living. Therefore it was work. Getting published was the only part that was fun. And I did far more writing than publishing.

These days I write because it’s more fun than not. I find that fact incredible, but know that these days I’ll seldom do anything more than once that doesn’t have some element of fun in it. I continue to write. Therefore I must be having fun.