I feel like I should write about the rest of the time I spent with Banji at her aunt’s house, but the words just aren’t coming right now. There was a lot of crying and other emotional vulnerability. We also had a lot of fun connecting (especially through music) and watched the entire first season of Elementary. The single best day IMHO was the one we spent outside around a fire talking, cooking hot dogs, and making s’mores.
As the visit came to a close, I found myself thinking more and more about my game in The Sims 3. I packed too much into the day I returned home, so by the end of it I had little energy (especially emotional energy) for anything social – even just talking or cuddling with Fox. I dove back into the game and haven’t really left it since. I’ve been playing it even more since Wakana gave me a list of things I need to do to get myself living life and interacting with people more; she asked me to call her at the start and end of each play session. I swear I didn’t lie when I agreed to do those things, I just promptly decided not to do them.
One thing Wakana asked me to do that I am inclined to follow up on is to write about my active game and what I get out of it. This post is the first of … some number, I have no idea … that will address the issue. I suppose I should mention that I’ve also been feeling very pressured to move more quickly on preparations for my legal marriage ceremony in less than a month. I want people (especially Mom) to back off but that doesn’t seem to be happening, so I hide in The Sims 3 instead of dealing with any of it.
My The Sims 3 family consists of a stay-at-home dad who’s going to become an elder very soon, an orchestra conductor who is painfully close to achieving her lifetime goal, a high school senior in a promising relationship who also has an imaginary friend, and a child genius. I’m at the point where I have a habit of abandoning my current game in favor of a new set of young adults, but I’m hoping that maybe I’ll stick with this family for multiple generations. Yet at the same time part of me thinks the best thing I could do for myself is drop The Sims 3 cold turkey, uninstall it and everything. There I typed it but I don’t want to do it, okay? I’m still holding out for a solution that lets me keep playing, just without sacrificing my whole life.
Last night I took a break from actually playing to create a timeline that combines all four sims’ memories into a sort of rudimentary narrative. This was more important to me than sleeping last night / this morning or doing anything useful today. There’s no point to creating something like that just to keep it to myself, so, well, enjoy. Please don’t hesitate to tell me what you think.
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a day with depression 
I can relate to wanting to escape life through technology. It’s tempting for most of us in this day and age, but I can relate to taking it to extremes, to the point that it’s an addiction for me (in my case, surfing the Internet). I think this post is an important step for you. What I’ve learned about addictive behaviors is that they serve purposes, so just cutting it cold turkey would likely result in relapse since there is a need that it meets that would then be unmet. When Wakana asked you to write about what you get out of it, she is probably looking for you to figure out the need(s) it meets, so that you can then eventually find other ways to meet them. Something to think about. This reminds me, I wrote about my addiction to the Internet over on LJ and have been meaning to repost that here. I’ll do that soon. Anyway, best of luck with this.
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