I have found it amazing how external events kick me in the ass.
Last night, I just wasn't feeling like I wanted to just keep doing much, MMO-wise. Not for that evening, but in general. If there's one thing that seems to be a constant in my MMO career, it's that change will always happen. Unfortunately, the negative change outweighs the positive change, and that wears on me after a while.
So while I was busy just going through the motions and in general feeling down, the news came across about the invasion of Ukraine.
And that was a shock to the system.
Oh, I knew it was coming --pretty much everybody did, if they were paying attention-- but knowing it was coming doesn't make hearing that it is actually starting any easier.
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| Mindless grinding did little to take my mind off of things. |
After I tried processing the news for a while, I just turned off my PC and lay down in the dark, staring up at the ceiling.
***
A large part of my problem with the news is that my kids are now of military serving age. It's one thing if the situation was bad enough that the military had to draft "Old Man Redbeard" in his 40s and 50s, but my kids are an entirely different thing. It may have been an extremely unlikely scenario, but late at night is not when safe, rational scenarios play over and over in your head.*
About the only good thing that the news did was to get me to stop feeling sorry for myself. Even then, doubts always creep in because that's what they do.
I don't have the answers to my irrational fears or my existential dread of whether I was a good dad, or that I spent too much time playing video games and not enough time with my kids. Or whether it was all worth it.**
***
Morning dawned after a somewhat sleepless night, and I found no comfort in the cold, gray day. The news out of Kyiv isn't good, and both my work and personal problems didn't magically evaporate. But for now, there's not much to do except just keep on plugging away. Because I guess that's what we do.
*Among the other irrational scenarios: Is my blood glucose crashing? Is my heart about to give up? Is my blood pressure skyrocketing? Am I getting fired tomorrow? Am I just faking everyone and not doing as well as I seem in my medical recovery? Is [insert drug name here] right for me? Before you laugh about the last one, I never paid attention to all of those drug commercials until I became a walking billboard for them. Now, I see a random commercial and say "Yep, I'm taking that."
**"What was all worth it?" "Hell if I know; that what can be as large or small as my mind wants it to be."
About the endless worrying in the night I get you. Chemo caused a bad infection that landed me in the hospital getting a blood transfusion because of no while blood cells. The ICD? CBS? Whatever the heck they put in stabbed me in the heart (1% chance) and hospitalized again just in time for me to be stabbed in the heart by doctors. I take 7 different freaking pills everyday that are probably killing me slowly while making me live a bit longer.
ReplyDeleteI do NOTHING at night but stare at the ceiling worrying. I can't imagine the amount of worrying I'd do if I had children of an age to be drafted.
I don't know if you do it but I worry about the dumbest stuff too. If something happens to me my husband doesn't know how to get the dog to do the stairs, what will he do.
I won't be there to send my daughter my stupid failed Wordle in response to her Wordle. And what's happening in the world, how can you not worry. I don't know about us humans. I hope the dolphins do better when it's their turn.
I actually had to turn around and look at the colony of drugs I have behind me to find out how many I take (6 plus one insulin pen injection per day), and going from ZERO to SEVEN in the course of one week kind of sucks.
DeleteBut getting stuck in the heart? That's worse. So you've definitely got me there.
And yes, I've thought about some really dumb stuff too, like how when I was going to the hospital to actually get checked in for heart failure, all I was worried about was whether they'd be able to cover for me for the raid that night. And work tomorrow. NOT anything about, you know, potentially dying.
Yeah, I know what you mean about how current events make you worry. Just hang in there, and we'll both pull through this. The dolphins owe us one.