Checking For a Pulse

871 days ago I wrote a post called “Not Dead.. Yet”. That was the last post on my blog. One that was typically, and lovingly, maintained for the most part over 12 years, before skipping the last two. And sure, I was never really gone – I still used my blogroll to poke in at the truly crazy (the ones who still blog daily, regularly, or even semi-regularly) but here you are. And here I am.

I can point to the fact that I am a fool for nostalgia and the past. I’m sure I have some sort of deeply embedded trauma that thinking of the past makes me sad. And then, of course, in typical “look at how privileged of a life you have lead you have no reason to be sad!” which then causes guilt sadness. Which leads to the obligatory thoughts of “hey, its ok to be sad, no matter what” and reminds me I need to stop thinking at all. Cycle of life. This line of thinking lead me digging deep into old blog posts, blog friends, and blog communities, went down quite the rabbit hole, and ended up back at Zubon’s last post over at KTR, (which also made me sad), but one line stood out: “I have seen too many blogs where the last post is “not dead yet,” six months after the previous post.” – which is, of course, exactly where I left my blog. On the same fucking line my Blog-Mentor refused to leave his on. Of course I did, and of course he called it, because hey – that’s why he was a great writer and blogger and I was a hobbyist.

I’m not back, I think. But I just felt like writing. And this is my public space for that.

A lot has changed in my life. Sold my business. Took a full year off. Toying with different ideas of getting back into the work force. Looking for something that feels right. Again, this is the ability to not work for a year but still manage to have feelings of guilt and sadness around that. I often use the line “Don’t cry for me Argentina” because hey, I’m lucky and I know it.

My son is 17, thinking about University next year. He has no clue what he wants to do. I don’t expect him to. I do, however, desperately want him to go figure it out while in University. That is a space where I grew the most as a human. Had the best times in my life. Made some of my biggest mistakes. And still fondly think of those days and how I would live my life there if I could just do it again. See, the past, still there, haunting me. Just go and live life. Figure it out on the way. Many of us just get caught up in the cycle of supporting our responsibilities, which is not a terrible way to live your life. It could be worse.

I have played a lot of games the past two years. Fortnite is a Monday night regular with another mid 40ish friend. I still laugh my ass off at how I thought when Fortnite pivoted from CO-OP PVE to Battle Royale that it was doomed. Billions later proved me wrong. I am afraid to go find and link the post, because it was one of my more ranty-er ones. But go find it, its a doozie.

I played Rainbow Six Extraction Hard. I never got into Sieve (PVP) as I prefer PVE, and the difficulty and weapon scaling reminded me of the original Rainbow Six PVE game from 1998.. it was the pinnacle of difficulty in a shooter back then. Such a great series. Go watch some gameplay, if you dare…

R6: Extraction was fun, scratched an itch. From there I did Back 4 Blood, which was the spiritual successor of Left 4 Dead, and did a really good job of it. I didn’t get any of the expansions and just trailed off after I completed everything in the “base” game that was worth doing. But it was a daily game for awhile, much like R6:Extraction was before that.

Valheim was a wonderful solo jaunt experience, and I spent almost 200 hours in it between solo and joining a server. I loved the “solo / together” aspect of a server, and most of my time was spent there. I built a huge castle. It took forever to get the mats. My server has decided to that it is going to reset itself when Mistlands comes out.. all that “work” and creativity.. soon to be gone. I’m spoiled on that now and have torn down my castle, and moved my building materials to my private server, so all the “work” of collecting things isn’t for naught before they zap it. I am unsure if I will rebuild it or not, pending on what comes after Mistlands, I suppose. I greatly enjoyed people enjoying my build, which is something you can’t really share in a solo game.

Well, unless you blog about it, I guess. That feels like a commitment. One I’m not ready to make.

What else? I am cleaning up my “Writers Resting in Paradise (WRIP) blogroll which is definitely a snapshot of the past blogs and people I follow(wed). As fun as it was to see how many people are still going, and how many still exist on their last post, many are now fully gone. The people behind them, who knows? I just hope that they are happy and healthy.

I’m not sure why I sat down to write today, but I am glad that I did. Lots of work and maintenance to do here still, and I will likely putter along, like a home project you keep telling yourself that you should do but do not, except scraping at the surface here and there. Move a box, set a shelf, fix a screw.

Progress, I suppose.

7 comments / Add your comment below

  1. ALIVE!

    I think that’s the part I love the most about blogs. There’s no true sense of FOMO as the medium itself allows for these train of thought posts. Or perhaps, it’s just me that enjoys these more than any “new hotness”.

    Glad you’re well after this 2 year roller coaster. Hope that continues forward.

    1. The pulse check is real 🙂 I remember the good old days of blogging where I thought I’d find an audience anf become important somehow. Ha! Delusions of Grandeur are healthy, I think. Keeps people dreaming 🙂

  2. Blogs are a weird medium in that you can take a really long ass break and still have some audience. It’s also weird in that a blog can be dead as a doornail for years and then sputter to life again. I stopped removing people from my blogroll because of how often that happens.

    Welcome back in any case. See you in 2024, or sooner than that if you can manage it 😉

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