Joy with Edges

I’m starting a monthly+ newsletter that is meant to chronicle my own journey with intentional play and hopefully inspires more joy in your life too. 

“It is a happy talent to know how to play.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

This past year I’ve been going through a mini midlife crisis. I turned 40 so it wasn’t exactly surprising. But, it actually had nothing to do with my age. For me this hit me in two directions. 

First off, our blog, which has been my career for the past 15+ years, is in its ‘sunsetting’ era. A couple years ago Google launch AI snippets in search and while I think these are convenient for users they devasted my industry. I won’t go into all the details now, but it became clear it was time for a new career. 

Second, I made the decision to stay home with my youngest son for a year. He was not thriving in daycare and we deiced to keep him home until he turned 2 years old. I had never been a stay-at-home parent before, and as a very career-oriented person this was a major adjustment. I would go so far to say an identity crisis.  

There are many things I could unpack from these two situations I found myself in. And trust me, I have. I feel like my mind never stops circling it sometimes. Here’s the biggest, loudest thing I realized I was missing: PLAY. 

My career in blogging had been a natural place for me to play often. I love ‘hobbies’ like crafting, cooking, and visual art projects. My job made some space in my life for these things. And before I had children, and especially before staying home with them, I had free time I spent doing varies types of enriching play. Losing this, my career and free time, resulted in a big lack of joy in my life. Which I felt baffled by as I love my children, my home, my partner and generally my life. So, why did everything feel so colorless?

me looking at art at the STL art museum

I came to this realization from looking at the way I parented. I realized I spent a lot of time and effort making sure my kids had many forms of enriching play in their days. For kids this is something parents facilitate in different ways after they are born until they are grown. From buying Montessori toys for your toddler to signing up and driving your 10-year-old to soccer. Even if you’re not a parent we were all kids once and I think most would agree that play is so important for kids’ development and happiness. 

It’s important for adults too. But we have to facilitate it for ourselves. That’s what I was missing.  

“Play is our brain’s favorite way of learning.” -Diane Ackerman 

Now I’m on a journey. A recovery, if you will. I’m unearthing many of the intuitive things I knew about play as a child as well as learning some new things. I hope you will join me. 

Joy with Edges – What does that mean? 

In life there are so many different things that bring us joy and many different kinds of joys. Some things that are joyful or just plain fun require very little of us. But I am focusing on joy with edges, or when I think of planning things for my kids I call it enriching play. It is joy that requires something of us: attention, skill, physical exertion, time spent learning something new, etc. It’s not entirely frictionless but this makes the experience deeper. 

We are unearthing the art of play. I think our culture doesn’t make a lot of space for this in our adult lives and I think this is a mistake. Hopefully you learn to prioritize play along with me. We are meant to play. 

What can you expect from my newsletter? 

I have one year of content planned. It will be 1-2 newsletters a month. It's free. I will try to add them to this blog after (but much of the content will only be available in the newsletter).

Topics I plan to write about:

-Curiosity

-Authenticity

-Being Resilient

-How to be an Optimist

-Journaling vs Brain Dumping

-More! This is not the whole list.

I also plan to share activities and specific ideas you can customize for your own play. If you liked old school DIY / craft blogs this is honestly similar but more personal. And probably more random.  

Some of my favorite ways to play include: crafts, photography, creative writing, and weird art. Many of the specific ideas I share will fall under these categories, but I promise to share LOTS more ideas because there are many ways to play.  

I’ve also been working my way through a big stash of books written by smart people, like PhD types. All centered around play and how important is it to our brains and our well-being. I’ll be sharing those books and things I loved from them.  

Basically, if you feel like your life is missing something and you suspect this topic of play might be a part of it this newsletter is for you. It’s certainly for me. I need this.