I didn’t have the language for it when I was younger, but I do now. I am a serial hobbyist. That phrase usually gets said with a half-smile, as if it’s a polite way of admitting a flaw and as if liking many things means I couldn’t commit to one because curiosity is a distraction instead of a compass.

Some of my earliest memories are tied to collecting. Books came first. Archie comics, to be exact. They were bright and funny and felt like tiny worlds I could step into whenever I wanted. Over time, my collection grew and matured the way I did. There was romance, horror, erotica, self-help, literature, autobiographies, and love stories, but my favourite genre has always been personal reflections – especially biographies of famous people because I’ve always wanted to know how people became who they are. What they survived. What shaped them. What they never say out loud.

My love for books never left. It just became quieter, more constant, and a background hum in my life. Even now, wherever I live, my books come with me. They aren’t décor. They’re evidence.

Then there were coins. I don’t even remember deciding to collect them. There were coins from across the Americas, Egypt, India, every continent and countless currencies – each one a small and heavy promise of somewhere else. They made me dream bigger than the world immediately around me. They made me imagine movement, possibility, travel, and distance.

Then came the stickers. This is the one people laugh at when I mention it. Packs of snacks from the school cafeteria, each one hiding a sticker. I kept thousands of them. Some of them no longer stick and some of them are worn at the edges, but I’ve carried that collection with me through every every phase of life.

Creativity was never a phase. As I got older, my hobbies changed shape but not spirit. Makeup became an obsession and I learned everything I could. I was self-taught, experimenting, and practising on myself and others. It wasn’t about vanity, but rather, about transformation. It was the detail and about seeing a face as a canvas, a story, and a mood.

Sewing followed. I bought a machine and then another, more portable one when space became an issue. I loved the problem-solving of it. I enjoyed measuring, adjusting, and making something functional and personal with my hands.

Photography had its season too, back when film mattered and back when you waited. I was the family photographer for every event and every gathering. I learned how to see moments before they happened and how to anticipate emotion.

Graphic design and website building came naturally. I love aesthetics and I love structure. I’ve built countless websites, not because I had to, but because I wanted to understand how things fit together.

Writing, though, has always been the throughline. It’s the one constant that never fully disappeared, even when other interests faded or shifted. It’s why this blog exists, but more importantly, it’s how I make sense of myself over time. Writing is where memory and observation meet, where frustration becomes language, where love is examined rather than idealized, and where identity stops feeling abstract. Writing is where scattered experiences begin to align. Writing doesn’t just document events; it reveals meaning. It allows me to sit with contradictions instead of resolving them and to name truths I didn’t have the words for in real time.

And then there’s volunteering. I don’t know if people always classify that as a hobby, but for me it is – and an obsession at that. I’m drawn to nonprofit and NGO spaces because I have skills I don’t always get to use professionally. I like bringing order to chaos and helping things make sense. I enjoy contributing in ways that feel meaningful rather than performative.

For a long time, I wondered if these activities meant something was missing. Why did I need constant activity in my life? Am I trying to fill space? But that explanation falls apart when I look at the timeline.

I’ve been like this since childhood when I had time, and I’m still like this now when I don’t.

I have a husband, a child, and a job. I have responsibilities layered on top of responsibilities and still, I find ways. Some hobbies fade into the background while others move forward because they fit into the life I have now. Sewing comes and goes, writing stays because it’s convenient, portable, and forgiving. Graphic design adapts, and reading becomes slower but deeper.

This isn’t about boredom. It’s about how I process the world. I learn by touching, collecting, observing, and creating. I hold onto objects not because I’m sentimental, but because they represent continuity.

We’re taught to admire singular focus. We’re supposed to pick a lane and to become known for one thing, but some people aren’t built that way. Some of us are integrators. We gather skills, experiences, textures, and stories, and weave them together over time. Nothing is wasted and nothing is random. Even the hobbies that go quiet leave residue. They shape how we think, how we see, and how we problem-solve.

My love of biographies informs my writing. My eye for photography shapes how I describe scenes.
My graphic design instincts affect how I present ideas.
My volunteer work grounds me in reality.

I don’t know if I’ll ever stop being a serial hobbyist. Some parts of me will always be the child collecting coins and imagining other worlds. Some parts of me will always be the woman learning something new just to see if she can. Some parts of me will always need to create, document, and preserve.

Maybe that’s the point. Maybe I wasn’t meant to be one thing. Maybe I was meant to be many things – quietly, persistently, and without apology.

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