It's been a long time since last I updated, and I felt the need to get a few things off my chest tonight. First of all, I'm sorry for the lack of updates. Originally I had intended to write every day, either online or in a paper journal that I originally started keeping the day before I moved down here. After about a month however, I felt as if putting everything I was feeling down on paper was no longer really helping me.
The truth is, when I came down here, I was a bit shell-shocked. I had lost access to World of Warcraft, Andy, my cat, everything that was familiar to me in Madison, not the least of which was my apartment, my own sense of independence and my freedom to go where I wanted, say what I wanted, do what I wanted.
I felt like a prisoner, and that I was being punished for misbehavior. I was humiliated, and hurt, and most of all very very angry with myself. Angry I let things get this bad. Angry that I had made a misstep or many missteps along the way and somehow ended up where I was.
And then there was the unexpected pangs of home sickness. We can think we hate a place with all our might, but take us away from what we know, and how quick we change our tune.
When I first got here, my mom and I didn't have a very good relationship. It had been strained for a long time prior to me coming, mostly due to what I felt was failure on her part to be there for me when I needed her. It was only after I got here, that I realized in some ways, my mom had needed me as well, and neither of us had been there for one another.
So there was that. And then of course there was the rather rough conversations we had on the day I was suppose to move, where my mom was up until the last few moments still trying to make me live with my grandmother. My grandmother didn't want me to stay with her, I didn't want to stay with her, and there was my mom, whose arms I longed to escape into, essentially telling me she didn't want me either.
How rough right?
I'm not saying I didn't deserve to pay penance for some of my mistakes, but I wasn't totally to blame. I can say that now without feeling like a liar. Some of what happened, to me was just really bad luck. I of course had to go and make things worse for myself, based on how I reacted to things, but that's just neither here nor there. Since we all make mistakes in judgments we must come to live with.
The truth is, I adapted after a few days to not having wow to play. I adjusted to having no privacy, and stopped creeping around my moms house, with as little movement as possible so as not to disturb things. I still tend to try and keep my areas at least somewhat neat. When they start to get too out of hand, I start cleaning them up, unasked.
I keep the bed my mom has made for me on the couch, as neat as I can. Most days I empty the dishwasher, and sometimes if I am extra ambitious, I start to reload it; though usually I don't load it, as my mom just reloads it the way she wants it loaded. I make the grocery lists most weeks, and I do the laundry a lot.
I think me being here comforts my mom sometimes, when she's tired, as I don't think she likes to come home to an empty house. We have -some- similar interests and will watch some of the same movies.
My favorite thing about being here, is that we can talk about things sometimes. Its also my least favorite thing about being here, as sometimes the invisible walls we put up between ourselves gets out of hand, and I feel as if I can't talk to my mom. Or worse, I feel her shut me out.
I am better though in some ways. I do envision a future for myself, and I am working on that future, even if I have my concerns about money.
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I shouldn't say that I am completely cured of my gaming addiction, or my internet addiction though. Through the use of the internet I looked up how to build my own gaming PC, and have ordered the parts to be shipped here to the house. The last of the parts should be here tomorrow and I will begin the painfully slow learning process of building it.
Having a computer to me - my own computer to me is the same way some people feel about getting a set of car keys. To me, my PC means freedom. A place to go which is just mine. It's something many people in my life do not relate to. The people I meet in game who play the same games I do, at least somewhat understand.
But even to the other players, the game itself is a different world to every person. Not every person plays the game the same way, there are very different paths players characters can take and I guess that is what most appeals to me. The role my character plays in some ways touches a nerve in me. It fulfills feelings and emotions and ideas I have, that no real world thing I've ever done has. It touches a place of fantasy, and identity and dreams.
That makes me sound a bit loony there. I'm not explaining it well.
I guess the point is, this is the first real break I've had from the game in almost 3 years. The game is not my life though, I don't feel as if it's more important than my real life -- I don't think any more that what I have is a gaming addiction. I really can shut the game off and live my life.
It was all the other things in my wreck of a life which ached and hurt which I couldn't seem to deal with before that inevitably caused all of destruction in my life.
Grief, and regret, and fear, and loss, and hurt -- when left unchecked, can make a mournful soul, feel so dark, they feel as if there is no way to ever get out again. I got to a point in which my whole life was miserable -- I didn't enjoy even gaming any more. Something which had always brought me joy, couldn't even bring me happiness.
I think I hung onto the game in the bitter end because of my sense of obligation to my guild. I felt as if people in my real life really just didn't care about me, and my guild at least needed me, in a matter of speaking.
But that was empty. It wasn't real. I needed more than that. I needed a chance to heal. I needed love. I needed flesh and blood contact. I needed my mom.
When my computer is built, I will be raiding again. I joined an AM raiding guild, which will allow me to raid in the early mornings, and then go be useful with the rest of my day. It will allow me while I still live with my mom to spend the evenings with her, like I do now, and when I am out on my own again, it will allow me to go to class in the afternoons, evenings, and online.
I was talking to my mom tonight about it, and she said that School has to come first, and not the game when I go, otherwise it's a waste of money and a waste of opportunity and I 100% agree with her. If I ever reach a point where I feel as if the game is coming between me and school, the game will have to go.
To me it's very important that I find a balance.
I've been thinking about going to school for something related to computers, since I have enjoyed learning about them so much over the last few weeks as I looked for guides on building my own system and made myself bonkers with researching parts.
The entire thing if I had allowed a third party to assemble it for me would of run me about a thousand bucks, instead I spent less than $700. Had I not been buying very powerful graphics cards, and an expensive processor, I would of spent about $400 -- of which $100 was for the windows software.
Who needs dell when you can have dietcokegirl builds eh?
Anyway. I feel better after typing all of this out. My relationships with people other than my mom are sort of influx. Andy and I haven't really talked at all since I moved down here. He was a jerk and blew me off, we made peace (or so I thought) and I haven't hear from him since.
I was angry, and then hurt. Now I am just sort of "what the fuck ever" about the whole thing. The truth is, I'm going through a lot of stuff right now and if people don't want to be there for me while I'm going through hell, so be it. I know I will come through this on the other side. I know that new friends and new love will enter my life.
I know I will change and become the person I most want to be. Hopefully when I reach that point, the people I love will be standing around me. If they're not though, which will be too bad, it doesn't make my efforts to change meaningless.
We can only be the people we have to be. If he needs to go off and do his thing for a while and I need to do mine, maybe it's for the best. I don't think I've seen or heard the last from him, and even though I sound kind of bitchy in this entry when I talk about him, I really do love him, and have for many years. He and I have had our extremes and our ups and downs as friends. But that's life sometimes.
I'm not sure if any old time readers still read this journal, but if any of you do, I just wanted to share with you my former roommate Mark, just became a father for the first time!! He and his wife Beth just had a baby. Wow huh?
Anyway, things are looking up. I have hope for my future, and it's real hope -- not the desperate kind where you're craving escape, so much as the hopeful hope (ugh horrible sentence) you feel when you are planning for your future.
I'm going to be okay. I don't know how, or when, or where. Things still haven't all shaken out, but I'm going to make it.
10:28 PM - 09.23.2010
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