I’ve got something that’s tough to admit: exercise for the sake of exercise kind of sucks. It’s been all I’ve been doing for the past few years, and it’s not fun. Older son has been playing soccer, and especially with indoor soccer, I’m struck by how much I miss PLAYING. I actually started googling adult rec soccer leagues near me. (If you know of a good one, let me know. Seriously. Nothing is coming up.)

I pretty much stopped playing soccer after high school because of a knee injury, with the exception of some ill-advised intramural playing in college when I was on scholarship for rowing. If I had gotten hurt, people who wanted to kill me would’ve had to stand in line, starting with my dad, even before my coach. (Hi, Dad.) The problem was the soccer was fun. It was a game. Rowing was exercise. Racing was fun, but you only race like 6 or 7 weekends the whole year, and the rest of the year was pretty brutal training. I felt like I got good at the sport once I finally figured out visualizing myself in racing scenarios or just telling myself I was a robot and not thinking about anything at all. Heck, even lifting was fun compared to erging.

Running is a little different than erging, with some serious mental benefits that I love. I can get into a zone while running so I’m not really feeling pain and can cruise along, but that’s not “fun” technically. It does feel good, and running feels great once you’re done. I listen to music and sometimes even podcasts or guided runs, so that’s all good mental energy going on there too, but also, not fun in the true sense.

I miss GAMES. Is that weird? I miss playing sports that are games. I miss gym class kickball, dodgeball even though I was bad at throwing, Speed-Away (technically invented by our middle school gym teachers, but I think it was just football, soccer and basketball combined), or heck, anything on a field. Field days in elementary school stand out as some of the best days of my young life. Part of me would still worry about injury because sometimes my knees hurt if I stand wrong, but I get why lunchtime volleyball leagues and weekend basketball games at gyms are popular.

So I need to figure out a way to play again. I guess I have a couple of kids who could help with that. I still love running and don’t mean to talk down about it. Sometimes solo exercise is all I want to do, it’s true. But exercise has just felt so serious, like it’s all for some grand purpose, or worse, for burning calories and trying to reach some unreachable body standard, and moving for fun, playing, sounds like joy in a way I haven’t felt about exercise in a while.