Much like discovering your Vault in Fallout: Shelter is someone still running or perhaps your old tamagotchi has someone survived to become a zombie and feast on the brains of other tamagotchies, my blog is still here!
::and there was much rejoicing.... yay...::
Man'o'man. So a little come-to-Jesus moment here at Dropship Inbound. If I were to symbolize my gaming life for the last three months, the image of a Victorian woman dressed in black pacing a widow's walk waiting for her sailing husband to return is probably the best I can muster. The last three months have been difficult to say the least. Between project work at my place of employment, troubles and trials with kids, and a bevy of real-life requirements, waiting for gaming to return has been a pretty depressing lesson in futility.
I think in the last three months I've played a couple games of Netrunner, an X-wing game a month ago, and a couple games of MTG Commander with a work buddy. Aside from that, nothing. Not even work on Skunkworks projects such as Homeworld: Full Thrust. I'll admit, some evenings when exhausted and wanting to veg, I broke out my tablet to play Walking War Robots or Talisman, but its hard to count those as same category as the "gaming" I devoted this blog too. Those were more stress-relief.
Regardless, I think it's time to open up another chapter of Dropship Inbound that I hinted about in my very first post - LIFE. Ever since my amazing wife and I embarked upon creating a family a couple years ago, I knew that my gaming hobby would become a hurdle. At the time, I was very involved in my gaming club GASP (having recently been made royal court), running the first of my Battletech campaigns, and organizing an every other Thursday open miniature gaming night at a local game store called "The Open". The time I had in those was something my wife supported, for the most part, but even I'll admit it took a good amount of my time. When my wife and I found out my daughter was going to join us, she and I sat down and some horsetrading commenced. Battletech campaign? yes. The Open? No. GASP games days? Month-by-month basis. For a time, it was good.
Then along came baby #2, my son, and everything changed. I'd be foolish to say I had planned for every eventuality. Far from it, I went from "emotionally-prepared" to "deer-in-the-headlights" in the span of about a month. At that time, my second Battletech campaign was closing, I hadn't been to a Games Day in probably 3 months+, and any other gaming had become short weeknight games with Drew. The time-collapse, from that point on, was like an avalanche.
I'll save you the rest of the story and jump to the present. I haven't been to Games Day in over a year at this point. Devoting a 4 hour+ block of time to Battletech is almost a pipe dream and even the thought of a organizing The Open makes me laugh.
The point of this story? It'd be easy to say I'm bitter or jaded to see my hobby atrophy as badly as it has. Between finances and time, there's just been no ability to engage in it and to top it off, its made me a cynic to "hope" that I'll be able to jump into something (I'm looking at you Bolt Action...). The truth is, the easy emotions are usually those developed by knee-jerk responses and immediate stimuli. One thing I've learned is that lizard-brained fight-or-flight bitterness is a real emotion felt by anyone who has to sacrifice something they loved for something more important.
I'm not going to stand here with some fake altruism and say that a selfish feeling like being bitter isn't a real emotion. Far too many times we humans stand back deriding ourselves or others for feeling something. The point is the magnitude it has on your actions and what an emotion is balanced with in the scheme of day-to-day life. I am sad to see my gaming take a back seat, but I am happy to see my children develop and grow. I've needed to change my time to manage supporting my wife, supporting my house, and deal with the increased pressure of work. I deeply love my children and my wife, and the rest of life is in a constant state of flux I'm not really that comfortable with, but I'm dealing the best I can.
SO... OMG ALL THE FEELS, I CAN'T TAKE IT!
Regardless, check back soon. I'll be posting a new scenario for X-Wing.
You stay classy.
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