Rebuilding Rob

As WordPress continues to recycle old prompts, I pulled another prompt from The Coffee Monsterz Co to respond to today

How has your idea of a fun time changed over the years?

If you asked me a decade ago what a ‘fun night’ looked like, my answer would be very different from today. And I got a stark reminder of that evolution this past Saturday night as Kid 2 and I attended the Michigan State football game at Ford Field, along with Veronica and Spicoli, I started thinking about this very thing.

While I was at the game, I realized I was just having fun watching Veronica, Spicoli, and Kid 2 have a good time. I didn’t have anything to drink in the way of adult beverages, and I didn’t feel the need to either.

That’s a big difference between my idea of fun from just a few years ago and my idea of fun today. It’s not like I was a rampaging drunk then; nor am I a prude now. But I used to feel like I needed to have a drink or three to loosen up and have fun. Maybe at some point, actually convinced myself that I needed to have a drink to relax and have a little fun. But today it’s just not necessary.

When I was in my late teens in early 20s, my close circle of friends and I had our barhopping phase. We would go to bars in Windsor Ontario Canada since the drinking age was 19. But we would also go to clubs here locally in the Detroit area, even though we couldn’t drink. For me, live music, dancing, and alcohol became intertwined with each other. even when I went to baseball games, I usually need to have at least a few beers to get a good buzz going in order to “have a good time”.

But I’m not like that anymore. Somewhere along the way, I turned into the old man. I remember going to ball games with him and yes, he would have a beer or two, but he wasn’t getting wasted. I realized he was more interested in watching us have a good time. And the other night, watching Veronica, Spicoli, and Kid 2, I found myself doing the exact same thing.

Of course, this is not to say that I am entirely selfless. By no means is the value of fun determined solely by the fun that other people are having. In the last year or so, I have been getting acquainted with what I truly enjoy once again. a big part of that has been me learning how to be single again. Is it possible that I’m just learning this lesson for the first time in my life?

Thanks for stopping by Rebuilding Rob. Be sure to like, 👍 comment and subscribe to my blog below. It’s greatly appreciated! Also, feel free to follow me on social media as well! Check out my most recent posts as well as some earlier, related (and perhaps, not-so-related) posts:

• Teacher Armor and the Saturday Clearing
• The Extra Day: A Ten-Year Memory
• Of Training Wheels and Christmas Lights
• Charity Starts at Home (And I’m Back in My Childhood One)
• The Muscle of Empathy

AI art created with Google Gemini

The article “When You Turn Into Your Own Dad at the Ball Game” first appeared on Rebuilding Rob