bunny in second life™

This blog post is not about SL in particular, nor will it feature fashion. It’s also going to be a lot of words. o.o

I love words. I love to read, and I love to write. I do a lot more writing than my blog history indicates – I write often to help process and think through things. Sometimes I save the things I write, sometimes I delete them when the fit of writing has ended.

I don’t often use this blog as an outlet of personal feelings. But right now, I want to. I want to put into words on a page, why I have the problems I have right now, how they relate to my RL and my SL, and what I feel like. I have had an epiphany of sorts. I asked on plurk, if people ever thought of REALLY REALLY quitting SL. Not a break, not a vacation, not quitting and coming back for dramatic purposes – but really and truly ending their second life. The responses were varied, and I think many do think of quitting quite often, in varying degrees of seriousness.

I have always claimed that SL (or insert alternative “video game” here) is not my problem. SL is not why this relationship or that didn’t work. SL is not why I can’t save money. SL doesn’t take an unhealthy amount of my time. Lately I have wondered, if maybe I am wrong. If my “addiction” to things like SL and WoW are the reasons beneath the reasons for my current IRL situation. And here is where my epiphany comes in: they are NOT. It would be so easy for me to blame these pixelated worlds for my recent failings, but the truth is, the only thing at fault is me.

Sometime within the last 10-12 months, I stopped being an independent, hard-working woman who knew what she wanted, and started becoming the wishy-washy, ‘somebody save me!’ willing victim I am today. I stopped making my own money. I stopped making my own decisions. I wanted someone else to do things for me, and I made that happen. I gave myself too far over to dependency on other people, and I let myself think that it was alright to do so in the long term.

I’ve always been a person who values the opinions of others perhaps a little too highly. I’ve always had trouble deciding everything, from where to go and what to eat, to what I wanted to do with my life. But never, EVER, in all my pitfalls, trials and tribulations, never did I just give up. I’ve never until now, depended on anyone for everything, never just sat back and said “well I just don’t know, so whatever.”

I worked hard on my life, to be independent, to do what I wanted and be the person I wanted to be. I have in the past, re-invented myself. I have gone from a liar and a manipulator to someone who values honesty and forthrightness above all else. I have gone from the victim of sexual abuse to the mistress of my sexual desires. I have stepped up from being someone who didn’t have a clue to becoming someone who was good at things, sought after. I excelled at my work, and I excelled at my play. I was totally content. Not rich, not beautiful, not slender and popular. I was however, satisfied. I had what I wanted and I liked it and that was just fine with me. Did I have insecurities, fears, issues? Did I make mistakes, fall on hard times, fuck up? You bet – but that’s just life.

That’s all changed though… Somewhere, somehow, I lost that woman I had become. It wasn’t any one thing that made it happen, it just did. I really can’t pinpoint it. But I let myself go, in the worst of ways. Maybe it was the growing dissatisfaction with the company I worked for. Maybe there was too much trauma, with all the family issues. Maybe it was that I had explored too far in the world of sexuality and relationships. Maybe a lot of things, I don’t know exactly. But I just stopped caring, stopped trying and started passively drifting along. At first when I moved back to California, I got a little of my sparkle back. I started looking for work again, I became more socially active irl, and I had a lot of dreams and hopes. But as time went on, I got discouraged. My sparkle went back in hiding. I stopped looking for work. I stopped calling my friends, or replying to their texts. I even stopped really caring about what I was doing in WoW and sl.

And so it has been, since then. There have been little sparks of life for me – when things seemed a little better. When I did something good here, or someone said something nice there. When things got really good with my SL partner, or something special happened in WoW. You know, the little things that make life so awesome. But inside I have been so deeply unhappy.

I have been wallowing in indecision over what next to do with my life because I am powerless. And why? Because I took my power away. I gave it up to someone else, the boyfriend, the fates, the parents, to anyone who would give me an order. I didn’t want to be in charge anymore, in any venue, in any way. That is really what my downward spiral has been all about. I have absolved myself of responsibility, power, choice. I just didn’t want to deal anymore. Unfortunately, without choices, without power, without the desire to move forward, a life isnt much of a life. It’s just stagnation, and I have been feeling the effects of that all too keenly.

I don’t know if realizing this stuff will make any difference. I don’t know if I will wake up tomorrow and feel the same way, or if I will sink down into the gray fog of nothingness and willful victimization again. I hope I don’t. I hope I get up tomorrow and feel inspired to do something, anything, in any world. I hope I feel inspired to do an achievement in WoW, or blog a new look in SL. I hope I feel inspired to take the dog for a walk or visit the used bookstore, or get my parents to go to Denny’s for breakfast. Sometimes life is just a struggle, no matter your circumstances, your finances, your beliefs. Sometimes it’s just fucking hard. Most of us are equipped to rise above it, and I know I am equipped to rise above it. I know I have it in me to start again and move forward, be it to a new state or a new job or a new friend.

I miss my independence. I miss having my own money, my routine of 9-5. I miss grumbling about overtime, or looking forward to the weekend. I miss being pleasantly stressed, complaining about rush hour traffic, and wishing I had more hours in the day to do all I wanted. I miss MYSELF. I hope I find her again, cause she was kinda cool.

I want to end with a special thanks to the people that have put up with my downward spiral, whether they knew it or not. =P I don’t know what tomorrow brings, and just this once, I am not going to apologize to anyone for the mistakes I made or the hurt I caused. This one’s for me!

Independent Women – Destiny’s Child (you know you love it!)