Where Has All the Passion Gone?

Something happened the other day that made me sad. While it was just a passing conversation that lasted about a minute, maybe two, it's stuck with me for about a week now.

Hubby and I were watching TV, and a commercial for some reality-type show came one. It was some show where a guy gives relationship advice to couples, yadda yadda. The clip showed him telling a wife that it's very important that she share some of her husband's interests. Or something along those lines.

Hubby looks at me and says, "See? You should be interested in wrestling with me."

I hate wrestling.

So I tell him that I've at least TRIED to watch and participate in his only interest, but I can't get into it. I should get points for trying, though.

He says, "Well, I share your interests too. ... You got me watching One Tree Hill, and Gilmore Girls, and Buffy..."

Those aren't interests. They're TV shows.

So he asks the ultimate question, the one that makes me sad -- "What ARE your interests?"

And after a moment of pondering, I answer: "I don't really have any anymore."

*****

And I've been thinking about that all week. Whenever I have to fill out a survey about my interests, I fall back to the things I USED to be interested in -- or, at least, I acted on those interests ... things like foreign languages (I have a huge shelf of self-teaching books in languages from Portuguese to Arabic and a bunch in between), working out (I used to love to take classes like kickboxing and bellydance, and fun stuff), painting, scrapbooking....

Pretty much the only thing I still do that I used to put on my lists is read and write. And even then, my writing isn't as consistent as I'd like. I'm currently in a rut the size of the Grand Canyon. I'm so burnt out I can't even switch to another story and start it. Grrr.

I was thinking about this conversation while I looked at my university's class schedule for 2009. I was thinking about how I wanted to individualize a major to study comparative linguistics and various foreign languages. How I wanted to be in the CIA when I grew up -- seriously. To translate and interpret multiple languages. And yet, I have not taken a foreign language in years at school because it keeps getting pushed back. Every semester, I enroll in a class, like beginning Chinese (I have a book on Mandarin and years ago I was decent but it's collected dust since 2003), but then I realize that if I take Chinese I, I'll have to take II and III and that will take more time than just taking a higher-level Spanish or French course and placing out of it. Which, of course, I never do because every time I put it on my schedule, I move it in favor of a psychology class or something else I need. My advisor asked me last year, If I love languages so much, why haven't I taken any?

I don't know.

I have interests in my head, but they never make it any farther. Sometimes it's because of money -- I'd love to take some language classes at school, even the cheaper 6-week ones that aren't for credit, but I can't afford it. I'd love to sign up for that community volleyball league, but can't afford it. The paint classes, Pilates classes, photography classes, Mini Marathon, study abroad... there are a bunch of stuff I want to do and I never do.

I'm one of those people who makes lists of things to do and see before I die. So far, I've crossed off maybe one thing on each list. And it makes me sad. But, not as sad as realizing that in the last few years, many of my interests, the things I was most passionate about in the past, have died.

Where have they gone? And can I get them back?

How much do I want to?