For 15 years, my identity revolved almost entirely on doing ballet. After all, how could it not? From 3 years old to 18, I was at the studio up to 6 days a week, up to 6 hours a day. There really was not time for much else until I graduated.
After trying UVA’s ballet CIO first year, I realized that the environment was not for me. I was not at a point where I wanted to either be 1.) instructed by another college student with little/no experience teaching, or 2.) go to a class and not be instructed at all. I was still in the mindset, fresh out of high school (my former dance teacher had treated us all, regardless of skill level, with equal attention), where I wanted to learn from professionals skilled enough to nitpick my technique and help me get better.
So, I left the ballet club because, simply, it did not make me happy. The alternatives, however, were not any better — either to join the Charlottesville Ballet (that was out of the question, I was not that good), or to not do ballet whatsoever. The Charlottesville Ballet does offer adult classes, which is great, but they are mainly beginner or intermediate level. Plus, from experience with my studio at home, I know adult ballet is not usually filled with truly young adults, hence creating an even more isolating experience.
So, I ultimately left ballet and decided to pursue other forms of dance (shoutout University Dance Club!!) , which I don’t regret doing in the slightest. Using the technical foundation I built from years of rigorous ballet training, I’ve had no problem finding a creative outlet in contemporary, jazz, and modern dance. Yet, I still miss ballet. Why were the only options to either go professional, be forced to not take my hobby seriously, or leave it all together? Where was the middle ground?
Major life transitions, whether it be from high school to college, college to the “real” world, or from working for several decades until retirement, are highly vulnerable times. And between each one of these sits many more smaller changes that have the potential to be just as disorienting without a proper support system. They naturally put our sense of identity to the test by pulling the rug out from under us, stripping us of a routine we have held for seemingly ages. One would think that at the very least, our hobbies would be the one thing that remains constant — after all, it’s not like our love for them ever wanes during these periods.
I wished there was an opportunity for me to continue my passion outside of the realm of a high school extracurricular, but instead, it felt as if I was expected to immediately shut the door as soon as I graduated.
Yet, our hobbies can’t always come with us into the next chapter — not if there are no opportunities in that chapter to pursue them. If UVA provided me with a space to continue to grow and develop as a ballet dancer, outside of pursuing a degree in dance and without the expectation to go professional, I would still be doing ballet. I wanted to continue taking ballet seriously for no other reason than that I love the feeling of pushing myself to be better. I wished there was an opportunity for me to continue my passion outside of the realm of a high school extracurricular, but instead, it felt as if I was expected to immediately shut the door as soon as I graduated.
It’s not just me. This happens every day, in just about every hobby one might have a passion for and need to be instructed in. Our society seems inherently hostile to the development of a hobby that we cannot, for one reason or another, monetize. People are constantly forced to leave their hobbies behind for a career only because that hobby cannot make them money or cannot become their career.
Maybe they’re just an average, adult musician who can’t find a lesson that isn’t filled with children. Maybe they play a sport where there are no leagues available outside of the collegiate/professional level. Maybe they can’t find the proper guidance to continue a physical activity safely as they age. For one reason or another, the door on hobbies is one we don’t always have the privilege of being able to open or close at our whim.
So what can we do?
This may be a discouraging answer, but finding new hobbies is always an option. It’s not always what we want to hear, especially when you’ve had an extended period of time to become attached to and develop a love for your old hobby. But sometimes, life steers us somewhere where there simply is no opportunity to continue to pursue what we love, and the next best thing to do is find something that has the potential to be equally as fulfilling. Similarly to me, my partner did not love the limited opportunities UVA has for continuing wrestling after high school, so he decided to try out for the rugby team. He loves the team bonding aspect of rugby that wrestling notably lacks, and it gives him a competitive outlet.
I am of the firm belief that fulfillment in your hobbies, at least in part, comes from the ability to track yourself getting better at them, such by beating your 5k PR or being able to tackle more complex crochet patterns.
If you’re searching for a new hobby to satisfy that itch for growth and development, intrinsically-motivated hobbies that you can do from pretty much anywhere in the world, such as running, lifting, or even art, provide quantifiable ways of measuring personal progress while still being relatively accessible. I am of the firm belief that fulfillment in your hobbies, at least in part, comes from the ability to track yourself getting better at them, such by beating your 5k PR or being able to tackle more complex crochet patterns.
However, it really would be more helpful to have more opportunities so that picking and choosing your hobbies based on accessibility and longevity wasn’t necessary — it needs to be easier to just pursue what makes us happy. Society doesn’t value the average like they do the potential of the beginner or the expertise of the professional. There is no one easy fix to this–skilled mentors should be valued more and paid accordingly to encourage their prevalence, hustle culture needs to cease and allow for recreational time, more clubs and meeting spaces need to be created to allow people to connect — the list goes on. Until then, one of the best things we can do in such vulnerable transitions is open ourselves up to change, and attempt to pursue new forms of joy if old ones are suddenly incompatible.
