That Sounds Fun

That Sounds Fun Plot Summary

Introduction

On a crisp autumn morning, I found myself sitting on a weathered bench in a quiet park, watching the golden leaves dance to the ground. Beside me, a young girl giggled as she tried to catch one mid-air, her face illuminated with pure joy. I wondered when I had last experienced that kind of unfiltered delight—that sense of being completely present in a moment of simple pleasure. Her laughter was contagious, a reminder of what many of us have lost along the way: the ability to find and embrace fun in our everyday lives. In our fast-paced, achievement-oriented world, fun has become something we often postpone until "later"—after the deadline, after the promotion, after the kids are grown. We've relegated it to the category of luxury rather than necessity. Yet what if fun isn't just a frivolous distraction but a pathway to something deeper, something we all yearn for? This exploration takes us on a journey through stories of ordinary people who discovered that in pursuing fun, they actually found themselves reconnecting with a sense of wonder and aliveness they thought was long gone. Through vulnerable personal anecdotes and thoughtful reflections, we'll discover how embracing fun might be the very thing that helps us find what we're truly seeking—a return to Eden in our fragmented world.

Chapter 1: What Fun Means: Rediscovering the Lost Garden

I remember the moment clearly. I was sitting at East Pole Coffee Company in Atlanta, grounded from travel for a few months after experiencing daily migraines. The coffee shop was bright and beautiful, with green plants hanging from the ceiling, their vines dangling down to the floor. I had a chai with oat milk, which was delicious despite being "ridiculous and hilarious and so bougie." But all I wanted to do was escape—to run away to anywhere but there. As I sat contemplating my escape, a deeper realization dawned on me: even if I did run away, there would be no getting away from my insides. The sadness had taken residence, and it wouldn't be left behind just because I left. This wasn't the first time I'd tried to fix my problems by hopping on a plane. It never worked. And that's when the question emerged: How often do we call escapism "fun"? When I'm looking to define fun in my own life, am I actually planning fun or just using fun to describe running away? For those who don't know, I host a podcast called That Sounds Fun, where in every episode, I interview friends or people I wish were friends with. At the end of each conversation, I ask the same question: "What sounds fun to you?" It's fascinating how much people want to talk about fun. When people recognize me in public, they often skip telling me their name and go straight to sharing what they do for fun. There's something deeply human about wanting to connect through the things that bring us joy. We all feel something lacking in our lives—a space that used to be filled but isn't anymore. Even on our best days, there's a quiet awareness that something has been lost. And while it might seem like the answer is simply "fun," I've realized it's actually more complex than that. What we've lost is Eden—that sense of peace and foundation upon which genuine fun can be built. I saw a video on Instagram one night of people playing large Jenga games in a park when suddenly a girl ran by and shoved all five stacks, sending pieces flying. Everyone was frustrated that their good time had been destroyed. After watching that, I couldn't fall asleep because I kept wondering if a cosmic version of that was going to happen in my life the next day. Would everything I was building come crashing down? What we have lost is real. That thing we know is missing is no joke. While the world may look at our lives and tell us we have everything, we know the quiet, nagging whisper of truth. We have lost Eden, we have lost peace, we have lost the foundation upon which genuine fun can be built. And now we have to go search for it.

Chapter 2: The Amateur Spirit: Joy in Being New Again

Often we use the word amateur to describe someone who makes a mistake or handles something incorrectly. When I get on the wrong subway in New York City, I roll my eyes at myself and think, "Amateur hour FOR SURE." But the actual definition of amateur is so much better than the meaning we give it. Amateur means "a person who engages in a study, sport, or other activity for pleasure rather than for financial benefit or professional reasons." It also means "a person who admires something; devotee; fan." When did we stop doing things just for fun? When did we decide being an amateur was such a bad thing? I hate being new at something because everyone is aware of my newness. Maybe you hate it too. Somewhere along the way we all decided we had to be professionals. That was the only option. But it has totally stunted growth and squelched conversations and stopped us from being brave. I worry about this a lot—the lack of joy associated with being an amateur. So many people in my direct circle of friends feel the pressure to be professional. From new moms to first-time authors to singles moving to a new city, it's easy to think you have to do all the research and know all the things before you start. And then what? You should have done enough research that you don't make any mistakes. You're a pro. But you're not. And neither am I. I've struggled hard with this concept, especially regarding social media. It is very difficult to live your daily life in public while learning and growing and making mistakes. A buzz phrase going around right now is "cancel culture." The idea is that when someone is found doing something wrong, their influence or popularity is immediately canceled. While sometimes mistakes are so massive and destructive that someone should be removed from their position, other times it's just a tweet-sized mistake. But because we expect everyone to be pros, we have no space for anyone to be an amateur. There is another thing that can happen when you start something new—you try something and you're actually great at it from the start. You pick flowers from the yard and make a bouquet that mesmerizes your guests. You eat divine French onion soup at a restaurant, try to make it at home, and it tastes exactly the same. As soon as that happens, people quickly go from "Wow, that's good" to "Have you thought about selling that?" And when you listen to their advice and turn your fun into profit, suddenly you have a business, not a hobby. I witnessed this at the High Line Hotel in New York when a valet was playing with a French bulldog named George. The valet kept messing with the dog, making him growl then bark, all while smiling widely. What I loved about this interaction was that no one was making money off it. It was pure fun. No one rushed up to the valet to say, "You are SO GOOD at petting that dog. Have you thought about changing jobs and becoming a dog petter?" Some things are just meant to be fun, to stay amateur level for us, to bring us joy, not income. Sometimes, though, being an amateur is the first step in walking toward the thing that brings both joy and income, that brings God honor, that changes lives. And when that happens, it feels like we're suddenly exactly where we're supposed to be.

Chapter 3: Falling in Love: Embracing Vulnerability and Connection

I fall in love constantly. All the time. I fall in love with ideas and the laughter of children. I fall in love with movies and recipes. I fall in love with the waiter who describes a wine perfectly and the handsome single man who volunteers at church. I fall in love with meals and jackets from shops in Aberfeldy, Scotland. In fact, there's a story about a shop in Aberfeldy called Haggart's 1801. It wasn't even open when my friends and I walked by one afternoon, but I looked in the window and loved everything. Ciara, my Scottish friend, knew the shop owner Ryan was inside, so she opened the door and invited us in. In less than one second, I fell in love with a jacket—a grey vintage Swiss army jacket with custom tweed lining. I begged Ryan to sell it to me on a day his shop wasn't even open. But I was in love. I've been intentional about walking toward emotional health these past few years. Counseling has been an important part of my healing and growth. My counselor and I have talked through challenging pains and decisions, and I know I'm a better thinker, decision maker, faith person, friend, and romantic partner than I've ever been before. And here's what else is true—the big hasn't gotten smaller. I haven't felt things less. What has changed is that the range of my emotions has increased. The depth is the same, but now I can call each emotion by its actual name. A guy once told me that he knew exactly how I felt about him because I wear my heart on my sleeve. I don't know that he meant it as a criticism, but I was scared of that fact for a few weeks. Then I realized that, yes, whether I liked it or not, my heart is absolutely positioned on my sleeve for all to see. It works to my benefit most days. My friends know I REALLY love them. The people I'm with have no question about where I want to be. That's just how God made me. It's powerful to let yourself fall in love with something (or someone). It shows vulnerability when you admit to yourself that the emotion you feel is love. For some reason there's an understanding in Western culture that says we have to hold back our love. Don't get too excited, don't get too into something, be balanced and cool. I'm calling a BIG NOPE on that because that's not being wise; that's being scared. Scared to stand out. Scared to tell the truth. Scared to really like something that other people don't really like. You want to learn to have fun? FALL IN LOVE. Fall in love over and over every day with something and maybe someone. Yes, it is going to hurt. But here's the thing about love and vulnerability and saying yes to the big feelings even when they are scary: it makes your heart beat hard and fast. And that's a good reminder that you are not dead. The thing you thought would kill you did not kill you. You lived. You are living. I experienced this when I went to Onsite, an emotional-health retreat center, after a difficult breakup. I was terrified to face my pain, but I knew I needed to. During my week there, in a small group of strangers who became friends, I shared my story and worked through some history. By the end, I believed my group leader Jim when he said I was doing the work to be healthy, that I was free of old pains, and that I should be loved well. On my last night, I walked to a labyrinth created by stones in a field. At the center, I looked out over the fields and made two promises: "God, I want to buy a house by July. And if it would be okay with You, I want to try again." I wanted a new man to come into my life, and with the health I was now pursuing, I wanted to try again. I wasn't giving up on men or love or big feelings. Because that's how God made me: the girl who loves to love and who wears her heart on her sleeve.

Chapter 4: Hobbies and Home: Creating Space for What Matters

I always pick a name for the house in which I live. The last house was Broke Lamp Manor, named for the broken lamp in the front yard. When I moved into my current condo, I knew it would be called Harvest House. I felt God wasn't saying this house would take less work or that this season of life would be easier; He was showing me that the work would change. It's no longer sowing work or waiting and watching. It's the answered prayers kind of work. It's the harvest kind of work. It took months for everything to fall into place—finding the right wall for my bed, the right couch, the right spot for my grandmother's china cabinet. The house didn't hold the highest highs or lowest lows yet. It has been a slow falling in love. A few weeks into living there, I called my friend Heather to express worry that I didn't love the house yet. "My mom says it takes until your first Christmas," Heather said, "and that's when you really feel at home." I decorated for Christmas in November, partly because I'd be traveling but mostly because I was grasping to feel at home in a home I owned. For the first time, my parents and sister came to town for Christmas Eve and Day. We made Christmas brunch around the walnut dining table, eating on my grandmother's china that cannot go in the dishwasher. After Christmas, things were different. Heather's mom was right—a home warms up when decorated for the holidays. I started to feel at home and feel in love. For the first time, I saw what it looks like to love at a slower pace, moving from like to love. To find the right thing and let it have time to become right. There must be something about Eden that is slow, that changes, that takes time to grow on your soul. Maybe there's a string that ties the work of harvest to slow love, to the lasting kind that burns like coals. One of the ways I've reconnected with home and self is through cooking. My kitchen at Harvest House is little—just a few steps in each direction—and all white. Above the sink is a sign that says GOOD THINGS ARE COMING. I used to like cooking more before developing allergies to cow's milk and wheat. It's been frustrating dealing with these dietary restrictions, especially since they relate to PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome), which affects fertility. Everything changed when I interviewed Chef Cory Barrett from Food Network's Spring Baking Championship for my podcast. During our conversation, he said something that stuck with me: "Lots of people say food is medicine, but I would say cooking is medicine." I needed to hear that. I had been living with the mantra "food is medicine" for years. But cooking as medicine? Maybe that was an Eden I didn't know I had lost. So I started cooking more—soups, egg salad, experimenting with recipes. After weeks of cooking, the way I talked about and looked at my own body changed drastically. The waves of self-hate that had been crashing on my shore went back out to sea as I stirred and chopped and roasted and waited. Love grew as I waited—love for my kitchen, my house, myself, and for the way God made food for us to eat. What I thought I was gaining in better food and faster service by eating out, I was losing in healing. Now I'm usually in my kitchen a couple nights a week, making something. Sometimes it's a soup, sometimes egg salad. I'm having fun in my kitchen—something that hasn't happened in a long time. Cooking is fun and cooking is the medicine that is bringing me back to a pure love I haven't known in a long time.

Chapter 5: Harvesting Memories: Stories That Shape Our Search

I sat on my friend Ellie's porch, and right in the middle of the table was a bowl of green snap beans. Every now and again she would grab one and eat it raw. I sifted through my memory and recalled sitting on my grandmother's cool cement porch, snapping beans with her and my mother. There's something to those moments, something worth paying attention to and holding close. One of the kindest things I've done for myself in the last decade is learn to pay attention to myself without judgment. When memories like that come to the front of my brain, I notice. They matter. They aren't something to be squashed or ignored. Even though we haven't been to Eden as it once was, even though we still have fun in our average day, we feel the loss. And we think, I just need more fun, I haven't done enough fun stuff lately. After quitting something I loved, I was a weepy mess. My friend Heather texted and asked if I had any free time the next day. I checked the movie theater app, and the Downton Abbey movie was playing at 11:00 a.m. I could not think of a more fun lunchtime escape than getting to see the world of Downton Abbey, where the biggest problem is whether they'd be ready for a visit from the royals. I put on yoga pants and a massive fleece, and we sat in our assigned seats. I turned my phone completely off. Downton Abbey was everything a thirtysomething girl with a predilection for British history could want. I cried a couple times, but way less because of what was on-screen and more because of the relief I felt falling into 1927 and the Downton world. It did not grieve me like my modern-day Wednesday grieved me. Sometimes in the middle of a tragedy, someone needs to make you laugh. Sometimes in the middle of a heartbreak, you need to ride a roller coaster. When a man broke up with me on a Monday, I had tickets to see Wicked that Thursday with friends. I cried through two songs, wrapping myself in the experience while also remembering that just outside those theater doors was a world where I was no longer in a relationship. After the show, we went backstage to meet Ginna Claire, who played Glinda. She pulled me toward her dressing table and mirror. On the table beside her makeup and wigs sat a tiny tub of glitter. She opened it, dipped her finger inside, and tapped glitter to the side of my left eye and right eye. She didn't know about the breakup, but there was something in that moment that felt like a gift, like God reaching down and patting my wounded heart. Fun shows up like that sometimes. It can be a vacation or a volunteer opportunity, friendship or fried foods. It's everywhere, if you're looking. If you let God gift you a glimpse of Eden, He will. It matters that we talk about how to find fun in a life that doesn't always go the way we think it will. It is important to start finding the glitter on the days that hurt too much. I know the rush always wears off. The laughter eventually stops. The sun will set, or rise, and the fun of today will end. Even the purest, truest fun doesn't last forever. It is always a glimpse of something bigger, something we miss. But that doesn't mean we stop asking, "What sounds fun to you?" Knowing what brings a level of joy and peace and simple rest to your heart reminds you that God's journey for your life includes glimpses of Eden that show up in smile lines on your face and laughter that sounds just like you.

Chapter 6: Chasing Fun: How to Find Light in Dark Places

On a Tuesday in March, I watched the season finale of The Bachelor with friends. The next morning, one of those friends tested positive for COVID-19. Before the week was over, I got a call from the health department telling me I had to quarantine in my house for ten days. This was at the very beginning of the pandemic, and my friend was one of the first in our county to test positive. I was like a deer in headlights. Stay in my house? Alone? For ten days? I went home that night, ordered groceries, called my parents, and cried. I had just spent the entire fall off the road, learning to find fun in my day-to-day life without traveling, and now I was grounded again. But this time, not just home in Nashville—home in Harvest House, facing every hour alone. The first night I was sad and afraid. I melted into the couch and woke up there the next morning. After reading my Bible and having tea, I made some decisions. I created a list of ways to count down these ten days: wearing a different color lipstick each day, counting how many days I wore "real pants" versus "not real pants," and making a quarantine bucket list of shows to watch, chores to do, books to finish, and new skills to learn. In truth, I didn't feel like doing ANY of that. I wanted to lay around watching TV and slog through to day ten. But I know myself—wallowing in isolation leads nowhere good. So before I felt like having fun, I made a list of fun activities. Then I started checking them off. I turned my guest bedroom into a podcast recording studio and my dining room table into my desk. I cooked every meal, stayed on top of laundry, and cried often because it still felt very lonely. Those ten days went by slowly, but they went by. Of course, those ten days became months as the pandemic continued. During my quarantine, I found myself out on the Harvest House Porch a lot—a small rectangle of cement outside my living room with an L-shaped couch with white cushions and multicolored Christmas lights I'd never taken down. I plugged those lights in every day, just for fun, because it made me feel like I was choosing to be in this beautiful place. I had meetings on the porch, ate meals there, and sat on the edge while friends drove by and waved. For the first time since buying the house, cleaning the porch became part of my weekly rhythm. In the afternoons I would open the French doors, put an album on my record player, light candles, and sit outside reading. The Harvest House Porch became a place for rest, work, and escape. Later, when I visited Lost Valley Ranch with friends, we discussed what we'd do differently if we had to go through another lockdown. My friend Jennie said, "I bought a full set of weights, in case we end up spending more time in our homes. That's what I wished I had last time." This started me thinking about how to create an expansive life even when the outside world might be limited. I decided to renovate the Harvest House Porch. I wanted the side shared with neighbors to be a full wall for privacy, an outdoor television for watching morning soccer, better twinkly lights and flooring, and more protection from pollen for my furniture. Using a refund from a canceled trip, I invested in making my porch a haven. Matthew, my contractor friend, helped transform it into a perfect space—a hub for fun that reminds me of that porch from thirty years ago where we snapped green beans and had no worries. It matters to me that you know I see you, having done the work to read these stories and think about what fun might look like in your life. Things don't always end the way you think they will. But the end doesn't get us to Eden anyway. What makes life fun isn't getting to where we're going; fun is in the going together. The rainbow, not the pot of gold. The soccer practice, not the end of the game. Fun is right where you are, yours for the taking. It's about connection with God and people, reminders of your past and dreams of your future, peace in the midst of a storm and rest during a busy week. The search for Eden is really about finding those moments of connection that remind us we're not alone, that we're part of something bigger, and that even in a broken world, beauty and joy are still possible.

Summary

Throughout our journey to find Eden in a fragmented world, we've discovered that fun isn't just about escape or entertainment—it's about connection, vulnerability, and presence. When we embrace being amateurs, we free ourselves from the pressure of perfection and rediscover the joy of learning something new. When we allow ourselves to fall in love—with people, places, ideas, or hobbies—we awaken parts of ourselves that have been dormant, reminding us that we're fully alive. Creating spaces in our homes and schedules for what truly matters helps us build sanctuaries of peace in an often chaotic world. The search for Eden isn't about finding a perfect place or returning to some mythical past—it's about creating moments that connect us to what matters most. It's about harvesting memories that sustain us during difficult times and chasing fun even when the world feels dark. Whether it's decorating a porch with Christmas lights during quarantine, savoring the process of cooking a meal, or simply allowing yourself to be vulnerable enough to love deeply, these are the pathways back to wonder and joy. So chase the fun in your life—not as a distraction from reality but as a way to live more fully within it. Because in those moments when you're completely present, completely yourself, completely connected, you'll find you've built your own little Eden right where you are.

About Author

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Annie F. Downs

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