Ep 6: My Play Date with Dr. J (a.k.a my husband) 

EPISODE DESCRIPTION:

You've heard a lot from me about reclaiming your right to play. But what does it look like from the other side — from the person in your corner who makes that space possible?

Today I'm welcoming my husband of 26-plus years, known around here as Dr. J, to his very first Play Date. Paul (what people call him IRL) is a professor, an eternally optimistic human, a lover of the outdoors, and the person who has quietly — and not so quietly — been one of the biggest reasons I've been able to keep creativity and play at the center of my life.

We talk about what it actually means to protect your partner's right to play, how to find the Venn diagram overlap where both of your cups get filled, and why play doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing, 78 RPM kind of commitment. (Sometimes 33 is exactly right.)

Paul also answers the question I've been dying to ask on mic: what does it look like when I haven't had enough play in my life? Spoiler: he's very kind about it. And I am... less kind about myself.

If you've ever wondered how to ask for more play in your relationship — or how to be the person who shows up for someone you love — this one's for you.

In this episode:

• Why Paul defines play as a feeling and attitude before it's ever an action
• How Lego, yarn arts, and five-gallon buckets of nostalgia are doing a lot of heavy lifting in our marriage
• The "kidney question" we use to de-escalate way-too-serious moments
• Why invitations (not demands) are the secret to protecting play in a partnership
• What to ask your partner if they can't easily access joy — and how to come at it from the side

LINKS:

The Wonder Project: https://annmarieboyle.com/the-wonder-project/

TRANSCRIPT:

Annmarie: If you've been following my author life for any length of time, today's guest probably doesn't need much of an introduction. But he does sound a little different than my usual Play Date guests — a little more baritone. And no, not Andrew from Love Me Like a Love Song. Andrew is a bass, not a baritone. And Andrew's also fictional. But sometimes that line between real and made up can get a little fuzzy in my author brain.

So if it's not Andrew, then who is it? If you've seen my social media posts, you know him as Dr. J. If you know him outside of that, you'll likely call him Paul. But either way, he's my husband of 26-plus years. For a girl who loves change, that is one long-term commitment.

But I didn't ask him on the show to talk about maintaining a relationship with a change-loving creative like me. I asked him on the show because one of the things I talk about a lot on this podcast is reclaiming your right to play — and how hard it can be to actually do that when life keeps handing you reasons to be serious and responsible instead.

What I've realized is that one of the biggest factors in whether I actually take that time and let myself play is having someone in my corner who genuinely believes that play and creativity and joy and wonder actually matter. Paul is that person for me. And I thought: what if we talked about that? Not just from my perspective, but from his. What does it look like to be the partner who shows up so the other person can have space to play? How can partners figure out how to play together? And how do we stop letting it quietly get crowded out by all the serious adulting we have to do?

Today, we're talking about play as something that lives inside a partnership — how you can protect it, how you can encourage it in each other, and what it gives back to both of you when you do. So Paul, welcome to I Used to Be Fun. Come on in. The water's fine, I promise.

Paul: You know I love me some good water. I'm dipping my toe in right now, and it is just a delight to be joining you in this enterprise versus all the others that we share. Thanks for having me.

Annmarie: Paul is a water scientist — if that joke didn't hit you in the right way, that's what he's talking about. And before I put you to work, I want to give people a sense of who you are. Not the resume version — or CV, in your academic language — but just who is Paul when he's not being Dr. Jackson?

Paul: So who is Paul? He's a lover of all things. An inquisitive, curious human. He loves the outdoors, loves being out and discovering. On occasion, he'll find himself immersed in music, in theatrical expression, enjoying those things — and he's just all about having a grand time in whatever the moment presents.

Annmarie: If you can't tell, eternally optimistic and happy — which drives the rest of us insane. Okay, just me. It's just me.

Paul: It's my gift.

Annmarie: It's your gift to me. So let's start with the question I ask everybody. I know we're going to take this episode in a slightly different direction, but let's get that foundation underneath us. Tell me what play means to you. If someone asked you to define it, what would you say?

Paul: I love this question because for me, play is more of a feeling and an attitude first, and then the actions come out of that feeling or attitude. It's a habit of mind that allows me to be immersed in something for its own sake — not for any other motivation, but just simply present in that thing. And it's all the actions that relate to exploring, discovering, enjoying, learning, doing, imagining. It's that immersive sense of just being.

Annmarie: I love the idea of play as a mindset. I also like knowing what play looks like in actuality. So tell me — were you a playful kid?

Paul: Totally. Absolutely. Part of it may be my mother's experience of having three boys all very close together. As a way to give herself some time and space, it was, "Boys, get out. Go out back. Play. Go." It was a command in some ways — to give her respite — but it also opened up space for us to discover.

I can picture myself all sticky and full of pine sap from climbing the pine trees as a young kid, just getting a different vantage point to see and experience. Or being out back exploring a limestone outcrop when we lived in Vermont, making up stories about all the imagined and actual items we found along and in that outcrop. Or bike riding — getting out and feeling that wind moving through you, and seeing the world from a slightly different vantage point.

And if I flip to what play looked like inside: I vividly remember the day my parents brought two five-gallon pails of Lego into the house from my uncles who had decided they didn't want to use them anymore — or maybe it was a generous convincing of my parents to my uncles that their three boys would be over the moon to play and build and construct. And I love thinking about that. Or the board games we played as kids, or cooking and baking — all of those had a sense of play for me.

Annmarie: My brain short-circuits every time I think about your young mother having three boys in three years. I just can't.

Paul: For good reason. We were a handful.

Annmarie: Before I move on — your mother sent you boys out to play partly for her own rest and to get things done. But there felt like there was also a value statement in there about what your parents thought about play. Do you feel that way?

Paul: I think so. There was a sense that they wanted their children to explore something unguided and indeterminate. Play can be guided, but I love that it's indeterminate — it's what you get to create in that moment, in that time. I think that does a lot for us as human beings — helping us make sense of the world around us through play.

A lot of education and cultural exchange is built around staged or crafted or intentionally designed experience. But there is an element of the undesigned, of just the evolving, that can be really powerful in the way you see yourself and the way you see the world around you — and I don't think that can be replicated any other way.

Annmarie: I've spoken a lot about how children learn through play — it's one of the primary ways kids learn. That's what you're talking about: not having a script in front of you and figuring things out through play. And that leads really nicely into my next question.

Because I think there's this thing that happens when you become a Serious Adult — capital letters — and also when you become a serious adult couple. Play sort of quietly gets phased out. We've been told play is only for kids. If you think about our relationship, are there points where things started to feel more like logistics than just living life?

Paul: I think there have been, and it's ebbed and flowed. We've kept some aspect of play all the way through. But there are moments that felt more constrained — different job pathways, professional demands, things like the house always needing attention when we were in or around it. Or just feeling tired at the end of the day and wanting to veg rather than do something else.

But I also think about the 17 years we had with our dogs, our lovely Boston Terriers. When you ask whether play gets phased out — maybe I'm overthinking this, or underthinking it — but maybe the dogs actually helped us maintain play. Because they live in the moment. They inserted themselves into our lives, and when we were feeling tired, they still needed to get out. Their energy was contagious — whether it was playing with them in the house, or in the yard, watching them have zoomies. Maybe that's how our play got funneled into something else. We were taking care of our dogs, but we were also enjoying those moments with them. Maybe that was just a reframing of play.

Annmarie: As I've mentioned in previous episodes, Paul and I don't have children, and that both allows us freedom and gives us an excuse to play. Your mom sent you outside partly so she could rest, but I'm guessing having those children also gave your father a reason to play — to take you on a bike ride, toss a football around. And we used the dogs as our reminder. But one of the things I'm hoping to come out of this is that we pull out the kids, we pull out the dogs, we pull out the grandkids, and figure out what play looks like just for us.

So let's talk about what play looks like for you and me as a couple — things we can do where we meet in the middle and fill both of our cups. What does that look like?

Paul: I think it takes a variety of forms because of the things we're each interested in. And for the two of us, it's an exchange between what you're interested in, what I'm interested in, and recognizing that the other sees value in that.

One of those is Lego. We both love Lego — and yet that love is expressing itself in different ways. Yes, we're doing it together, sitting down and imaginatively building or following a set of instructions to build something collaboratively. But I'm having this nostalgic flashback to childhood and just the tangible feel of a brick in my hand. What do you feel in that moment?

Annmarie: We do come at it from different places, and we've actually talked about this. For you, it's the building, the nostalgia. I didn't have Lego as a kid — the first time I played with Lego, we were living in Denmark on one of your sabbaticals. It was 2020, and we all know what happened in 2020. We had planned a trip to Billund, where the Lego headquarters are, and that trip got canceled because everything shut down due to COVID. But we had the foresight to run down to the shopping street in Copenhagen and buy a set. It happened to be a bookstore set, which, you know, speaks to me.

We had that to do while there wasn't much else happening — while we were in a foreign country where social things weren't happening. And playing Lego reminded me of something that was probably my favorite thing to do as a child: I would pull out blocks long past the age where anyone expected me to, go to my mom's top drawer and pull out all the hankies, lay them out as carpets, and then build rooms around them with my Fisher-Price furniture. I was decorating — which is still one of my great loves.

That's what Lego does for me too. We usually build the modular houses from the kits, and I'm blown away by what those Lego designers put inside those houses. So that's a long way of saying: you're coming at it from a building and creation aspect, and I'm coming at it from a decorating aspect — and yet it fills both of our cups.

I think that's a really strong lesson when you're trying to find play that works for you as a couple, or as a partnership, or with your best friend: where is the center of that Venn diagram? I love decorating. You love building. You love the nostalgia of those five-gallon buckets. Where does that meet?

With that in mind, what else can you say to someone listening who wants more play with their partner about finding where that Venn diagram intersects?

Paul: Part of it is knowing and recognizing what interests your partner has, and thinking about how you might enter into that space. You just mentioned your love of interior design — you have an exquisite sense of color, and fabrics are important to you. So as I think about where I might enter into that, it could be around yarn arts. I also did some crochet and latch hook as a kid — I know, I'm dating myself — but I'm thinking about that tactile building in a very different medium. Maybe we do the Wooble kits that are waiting for us right now. Thinking about what your partner really enjoys and how you might see yourself in that, or something closely adjacent to it.

Annmarie: I try to think about it from the other direction too. I know music is a big part of your life. Paul is an excellent singer. He plays piano, he plays organ, he played trumpet at one point. And live music is something he loves — it's relaxing for him. I have some sensory sensitivities, so I have to be careful with volume. But if you go back to my Play Date episode with Kristen, she taught me a few things I could do to help with that sensory issue so I can show up for Paul in a place he loves.

It's really just that constant curiosity about what your partner is interested in, and then asking: what about it could be fun for each of you? What about it feels like play for each of you?

And I've noticed there's a thread of nostalgia running through everything we've talked about — whether it's Lego, or cooking, or yarn arts. It's almost hearkening back to a simpler time, or at least one that lets your mind sink into a place that wasn't as stress-filled. Do you agree?

Paul: I think so. I might not say simpler, but maybe a less electronically stimulated time — where we're actually dealing with tangible physical objects, and not a joystick or a mouse or an infinite scroll loop. Where we have something we can see and feel in our hands. That feedback harks back to maybe some earlier kinds of play. It gets you out of just the brain and connects the brain and body together.

Annmarie: Neurologically, we know there's a real difference between what I'll call analog play and digital play. Both have value. But in our current environment, for many of us, we could lean into the analog a little more.

A close friend of mine recently started English paper piecing — a type of quilting. She started it to scroll less, to have something to do with her hands. And I joke that she rage quilts sometimes. But it has become something that's not only kept her off her phone — it's connected her to other people. She quilts with others now. What started as a way of putting down her phone has developed into something much deeper and richer. And that's something I think we can all lean into.

Which leads into my next question. I want to know from your perspective — and you can be completely honest — what does it look like when I haven't had enough play in my life? Then flip it around and tell me what changes about you when you haven't had enough play.

Paul: Let's start with me, and then I'll flip to you. When I don't have enough play in my life, I get too serious about everything. There's an intensity of seriousness that sets in. And it probably makes me more grouchy or irritable, if I'm being honest — I become more sensitive to things than I would otherwise be, and life feels really heavy.

And what changes when I get some aspect of play back: everything lightens. The serious subjects don't go away — they're still there — but they're not pressing in as hard anymore, because I've allowed myself to refill in some way through play or through creating without an agenda. That's the critical part. The agenda is gone. It's just to do whatever it was, to embrace that mindset of: I don't have an outcome. I'm just going to wander through and see where I go. And that's very freeing.

Annmarie: I'll add that Paul is very rarely crabby or in a bad mood — we can hate him for that, it's okay. However, I will agree that when you haven't played, when you haven't let loose or let down — whatever words we want to use — you become very... the words that keep coming to mind are "wrapped tight." Deadlines become more serious. It's kind of an odd phenomenon, but I think if we all look at ourselves for a moment: when we haven't allowed space, whatever that space looks like, it is hard not to take things more seriously.

It's a joke we've had since the beginning of our marriage. Paul is very serious about his job — he loves it, but he takes it seriously. And so I would say to him, "Are you giving anybody a new kidney today?" And he would say, "No." And I'd say, "Then it's okay. Go wing it. You can do this." Those are the pieces that play brings to your life — you don't get to that place where I have to ask you, "Is anyone getting a new kidney today?" Like, this is not life-threatening.

Now flip it around — what does it look like when I haven't had enough play?

Paul: When you haven't played enough, the weight of life is clinging to you in ways that feel like your momentum has slowed. The way you're moving through everything is like walking through sticky syrup — everything just feels so much harder to do, to approach, to deal with.

And when you start to play again, I see that lift. Things move more easily, become more fluid. And you start to have that little sparkle in your eye again. I love seeing that.

Annmarie: Nothing is better for me than laughter. I like to make people laugh. I love to laugh. And everything you're saying is accurate — and I think it's accurate for a lot of people, not just me.

Two things we can take from that: the first is start noticing how long it's been since you laughed. Not just a small titter — that deep belly laugh that actually changes your biochemistry. And second, when things start to feel really hard, instead of thinking "why is this so stressful," maybe we flip the question to: how can I walk away from that stress for a few minutes? How can I play? How can I do something creative?

We talk a lot about seeing the wonder in life, or practicing gratitude, and sometimes that feels like too much of a slog too. But walking away for a few minutes — or if you're lucky enough, half a day, a weekend, whatever it may be — and just playing, noticing what it does, what it changes in your mind, in your heart, in your soul.

Thanks for helping me see that in that way. Because we can step back and say: maybe this really isn't as hard as I think it is. Maybe I just haven't played for a while. And that is so much easier than trying to unknot the hardness.

Paul: Unknotting all the threads and ropes that feel like they're tangled inside you — yes.

Annmarie: Which leads to something else I wanted to chat about. If this is so important — if play is important to reduce our stress level, to increase our health, to make our relationships easier — how do we protect each other's right to play, and also make time for us to play together? Give me your advice, Dr. Jackson.

Paul: I think the first step is simply recognizing what play does, and acknowledging the need for it. Then being able to have those conversations with each other, and making invitations. Invitations to play in some way, shape, or form — whether that's getting out a little project you're doing together, or just saying to your partner, "We haven't done this in a while. What do you think about trying it now?"

Be free with those invitations, and recognize that they are invitations — that a yes or a no is both okay. Because I don't know what's going on in your head, and you might not know what's going on in your partner's head. We forget that we actually have to get what's in our head out to our partner. I am guilty of thinking, "Why don't you just mind read what I've got?" And I'm like — we're not there yet. I would rather we invite each other to consider play as part of our daily being. Issue invitations, and be okay with someone saying, "Not right now. I'm not in a place where this can work for me — but I don't want you to stop inviting."

Annmarie: I think invitations are great. I would also say for anyone listening who might have a personality like mine — or who has dealt with chronic health conditions like I have for 35 years — your first response to an invitation is often "leave me alone." But the thing is, you're good at understanding that I also need a little push. You've gotten really good at knowing when I need that push and when I really don't.

Your invitation to me sometimes has to be multi-layered. It might be the invitation, and then a little while later, the invitation again. Because it's really easy to get stuck in inertia, or to feel fatigued and not realize that the play invitation is actually going to help alleviate the fatigue. That's one thing I have to remember: it could make it better. Or I need to know where the line is — this isn't going to make it better, so today I'm going to say no.

Paul: That brings up something else: play doesn't have to be a binary on or off. You don't have to be all in or all out. There can be small pieces of play. It doesn't have to be big chunky bits. Maybe I'm up for playing at kind of a 33% level — thinking of old school LPs — am I at 33 RPM or 78 today? And just even that little bit of 33 can be a good thing.

Annmarie: And I think understanding that I usually run at 33 and you usually run at 78 — and not letting that be a judgment — that's been an important thing for us.

I think I spent a big portion of the early part of our marriage feeling like your higher energy level was a judgment of me, even though it wasn't coming from you. I grew up with my mother's Energizer Bunny energy level, and then I married the Energizer Bunny. It took a long time for me to realize it was okay to say no, and also okay to say, "Can you meet me at my speed today?" And also, "Hey, can you push me to your speed?" — which is what I was talking about on the last point.

But that's really just self-acceptance and trusting that your partner cares about you enough that a no isn't a judgment. It isn't telling that person their idea isn't a good idea. It's just, "I can't do that right now, but here's what I can do." So maybe instead of saying no to an invitation, we say: "I can't take an hour walk, but what if we did 20 minutes? I can't play pickleball at 3 in the afternoon because it's too much sun, but what if we got up and went before breakfast tomorrow?" Those are the compromises — and that's how you find play in your life, if you're willing to have the conversation.

Paul: Conversations open the opportunity. And you're right that making it a judgment-free space is essential — how you enter it, when you're in it, and as you leave it: all judgment-free. Super hard to do in the way we're culturally primed for moving through the world. But if you can think of it as feeding your vitality, I think that frames it differently.

Annmarie: So maybe there's somebody listening who wants to have this conversation with their partner — they want to ask for support, ask for that judgment-free zone, ask for help with the things they love — but they don't quite know how to ask. What would you tell them?

Paul: Three things. First, simply be curious about your partner. You likely already are — you may just not have expressed it in a direct or clear way. And through that curiosity, you allow yourself to be present and to listen deeply. Those three things package together: curiosity, presence, deep listening.

Lead with curiosity, and here's what I mean. I could ask you right now: tell me about a time when you felt some sort of immense joy, or a time when your energy got refilled. What did that look like for you? How did it feel? All of a sudden, I'm centering you in this conversation. I'm asking about a moment for you to share, and asking how that moment supported you. And that opens up space for what might come out of it. What do you think?

Annmarie: I think those are great tips. And the piece I'll add is this: I've dealt with depression and anxiety on and off throughout my life, and sometimes when someone says "what brings you joy?" — that's really hard for me to access. But I can access the last time I laughed. I can access the last time I didn't feel stressed.

So sometimes, as I say to Paul — he works in environmental education, and sometimes talking about the environment can be a bit charged — I always say, "How can you come in from the side?" And I'll use that exact language here. If your partner isn't great at accessing joy or positive emotions directly, how can you come at it from the side? Maybe that means asking: "When's the last time you didn't feel the negative emotion?"

If you said to me, "Annmarie, when's the last time you laughed?" — I can think about that. "When's the last time you didn't worry about book sales?" I can think about the moments when I was so consumed with something that I didn't have space for that anxiety. Often it's physical activity. Often it's Lego. Or sewing — sewing requires enough mental focus that I have to think about how the pieces go together, how the pattern will meet, what colors go with what. I don't have space to spiral.

So either way you ask the question, it comes back to knowing your partner. Being curious about how they move through the world will give you the answer. If they have easy access to joy, ask directly. If they don't, use some of these side-door questions.

Paul: That made me think about my own parents — my mother's love of gardening and how that was passed down to me. What is it about digging in the dirt that just makes you feel good, in the midst of the mosquitoes and the sun and the heat and the humidity?

Your husband could be covered in dirt and feel a lot of joy. You know that about him. And yet you can also ask, "Paul, what is it about touching the soil that brings you energy?" And I might say it reminds me of being connected to the earth. And it might carry a moment of nostalgia for growing things in the garden. For a lot of gardeners, I think it's the planting of the seed with the hope that something grows. And I think play has a lot of hope embedded in it — hope that is undefined as it emerges. That's a cool thing these conversations can uncover, about your partner and about yourself.

Annmarie: I love that. I wrote down while you were talking: getting joy by talking about joy. Sometimes we just need the reminder that there were things we did enjoy, things we did love.

My first Play Date guest, Kim Turcott, talked about how she loved to roller skate. Her nieces, who are adults now, bought her a pair of roller skates — and she hadn't gotten them out of the box. I think sometimes the older we get, we start thinking, "Am I going to break a hip?" But if you can talk about the joy, if you can really think back — like me building those rooms with blocks and Fisher-Price furniture — my mood is already lifted. It doesn't even have to be action sometimes. The memory of play, and the freedom that play gives us, can take us there.

Paul: Memory is another great access point, and a good prompt for a curious partner: "Tell me about a memory that made you feel lighter. That made you smile. That showed something inside you percolating to the surface." Those are wonderful things to invite others to share.

Annmarie: And when you locate that memory — dig deeper. Who were you with? Were you alone? Were you in a large group that made you feel supported even if you weren't really talking to anyone — like at a concert? Were you in a movie theater? Figure out where the joy came from, because then you know: maybe what's missing is connection. Maybe I need to call my girlfriends and we all need to meet for coffee. Or maybe it is solitary play I'm craving.

Okay, last question. What has it meant for you, to be in a relationship where play is something we take seriously?

Paul: Being in a relationship with play at the center helps me feel connected. It's that connectedness that helps all of us deal with the mundane, deal with the heavy — and also, on the flip side, enables us to celebrate with each other and express all the good things that are happening.

And I've really thought about connectivity with respect to the two of us, because that feeling of connection also allows me to do solo things. I am connected and supported, and that doesn't mean I have to be with you all the time. I can be out on my own and still carry that feeling of connection. So this play space allows me to be the best me possible. I would invite others to think about how being connected through play allows you to be the best you possible — or maybe allows you to tap into that possibility.

Annmarie: And the connection you're speaking of — that's the connection between you and me, or you and another person, or even you connected to the earth?

Paul: Yes, all of those. The environmentalist in me will always include connection to the earth. But think about play as relational — relational to yourself, to others, and even to the space and time around you. Okay, that's getting a little heady and academic.

Annmarie: I actually like it. And I like the idea that being connected to another human through play is a very different experience than being connected to that person because you're on the same committee at work. Connection through play feels like a lot more fun than, "Let's hang out and talk about that PowerPoint presentation we have to give."

Those things have to happen too. But really thinking about who you're connected to and why — does that connection offer you a safe space to go out and do other things? Does it lift your spirits? Does it give you new ideas? Does it make you fresher in everything else you do? I could go on and on about connection. I think it's as vital as play. So when you bring them together — that's really something.

Paul: Love it.

Annmarie: Do you have anything else you'd like to add before we close? Any final words of wisdom?

Paul: You can do a lot by being curious and not having an agenda. If you follow that curiosity into play, it will serve you really well.

Annmarie: And if you need an agenda — if that's the kind of person you are — you can absolutely make a spreadsheet about play too.

Paul: Totally.

Annmarie: I love spreadsheets. I make them all the time. I just never follow the plan — I just have to make the spreadsheet. So I'm not going to put down anyone who needs an agenda or a structure. You do you.

Thank you, Paul. Thank you for being here and taking time out of your day to have this conversation with me. I hope that whether your person is a spouse like Paul is to me, or a partner, or your best friend, something in this conversation gave you permission to play a little more — and maybe gave the people who love you a little language for how to show up for that.

And if you're still looking for a place to get started, or how to develop that common language, I invite you to grab The Wonder Project over at annmarieboyle.com/thewonderproject. It's four weeks, right to your inbox — some playful creative prompts, some cute little printable permission slips, just like the one you used to fake your mom's signature on — and it will help you reacquaint yourself with your playful spirit.

If this episode resonated with you, please share it with a friend, your sister, your mom. And don't forget to subscribe or follow the show. I'll end the way I always do: go play. For absolutely no reason at all. I'll see you in a week.

I Used to Be Fun is hosted by Annmarie Boyle. New episodes drop weekly.

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