Tag: reflection

Dragonflight

Posted on by Traumadoll

The ninth World of Warcraft expansion, Dragonflight, launched yesterday. This expansion brings a playable dragon race called the Dracthyr who can only be a class called Evoker. The Dracthyr are available to both factions, so expect to see them everywhere like we saw Pandaren everywhere the first month or so of Mists of Pandaria. The Dracthyr became available for play during the pre-patch event. Of course I made one, leveled it, and promptly took some dragon person riding a dragon screenshots. Normally I take a while coming up with a punny name based on class abilities, but I went the uwu route with this one and named her Dwagyn. A throwaway name for a throwaway toon.

I logged on a couple hours into launch last night. While I am aware that some folks on full realms had to wait in a login queue, that was not the case on the medium pop realm Hyjal US. I didn’t experience any of the queues and server crashes that my guildmates who were able to log on right at launch time did. I used to be right there with them, laughing and cursing the launch delays. I guess I’m getting old (despite being on the younger end of the group). I no longer try so hard to keep up with the time zone differences. Some nights by the time my friends are ready to do something, it’s way too late for me to be getting started. If it’s midnight, I’m getting ready to wind down…we all know I’ll be reading for another hour or three, but that’s part of my process. If I’m up gaming until 2am, I’m tired the next day. If I’m reading, I’m more rested. The timezone differences used to stress me out, but I’ve learned to just operate on my time and enjoy the time I get to play with my friends.

Look at me going off on a tangent again. It’s a good thing I don’t try to write novels. The reviews would all be about how I meander all over the place before getting to the point.

Dragonflight launched yesterday and I’m not playing the dragon toon. As usual, I plan to main disc priest. Discipline has gone through several changes since I started playing 7 expansions and a million years ago. Some of the early changes were great and I felt like a god wielding the power of life and death. I was an unkillable beacon of light in PvP (unranked, because in reality I’ve never been that good). I had open invitations to heal for friends’ guilds’ raids, because I was a legit good PvE healer. Other changes completely revamped the way the spec works and it took me a while to learn. There was a time when I was embarrassed to do raids because I was no longer topping the heal charts. My performance wasn’t terrible, but when you’re not running your own raid team and you play with randos who don’t care about reading those charts with proper context and would rather just call you a baddie, it is properly discouraging. This last expansion, I was finally finding my groove doing 5 man content and then we all sort of fell off the game, most of us having found the expansion lackluster. So now we’re helping the dragonflights of Azeroth defend their ancestral home. I got to level 62 yesterday and I’m enjoying it so far. There have been some neat quality of life changes to the UI that I’m finding very convenient. But this is not a review, so I won’t get into all that just yet. Maybe I’ll write a review once I’ve seen more of the Dragon Isles. In the meantime, enjoy my rambling brain dump. There will probably be a few more as I continue leveling.

If you got through this, thanks. I appreciate you. Sometimes blogging feels like shouting into the void.

A woman cannot survive on books alone

Posted on by Traumadoll

She also needs a cat. And at least one solid friendship.

A while back, I was asked to choose between a couple colors. I didn’t know what I was choosing, but if green or grey isn’t an option, I will almost always choose yellow. I had honestly forgotten about that conversation, so it was a nice surprise when this package showed up at my door.

I don’t have a lot of close friends. I’m not good at connecting with people. I’m terrible at reinforcing those connections over the years.

And yet somehow I do have at least one solid friendship. A few actually, but this is about one specific person. We met in a place unlikely to produce real friendships. We’ve have had our share of disagreements and drama and learned to trust that we could lean on each other as that superficial in world friendship turned into something real and lasting. We’ve watched each other grow as people, offering guidance along the way. We are very different people in a lot of ways, but I think those differences are what helped us grow over the years.

14 years.

Love you, bestie.

Letters to the dead: Silver Autumn

Posted on by Traumadoll

Dearest Silver Autumn,

It’s been so long since we last spoke. We once had a very special bond, complicated and forbidden, hence your chosen moniker for me. Sub Rosa, Latin for under the rose, denoting secrecy.

I held on to your letters. They reside in the same box I kept them in so many years ago, a box plastered in band picture and electrical tape. Your emails remain in my inbox. I read them every few years and I think of you with fondness. I’ll hold them always, and you’ll hold a piece of my heart always.

I will end this with your own words: I’ll see you when we are meant to meet.

Ex animo,

Sub Rosa

Compartment C – Depression and insomnia

Posted on by Traumadoll

It’s the middle of the night and I find myself getting upset over something stupid. Tears level of upset. Sad. Dejected.

Rejected.

But it’s in my head. Nothing happened to make me feel that way. It’s not logical. It makes no sense. And yet…

And yet the tears fall like rain, the sound drowned out by the thunderstorm that shakes my walls. But like the lightning that accompanies the thunder, the feeling is gone with a flash of light in the dark.

Sleep does not come easy. Again. Ever.

Compartment B – Feeling and not feeling

Posted on by Traumadoll
Do you like me?
Well I hope you do
Cause if you like me
Then I think I’m gonna to have to like you too

I’ve never been a particularly romantic person. I don’t watch chick flicks. I don’t read chick lit. Typical non-smutty romance novels can be entertaining, but I’m not getting warm fuzzies from them.

I get my warm fuzzies and emo tears from so many Futurama episodes. From that one episode of My Name is Earl when Earl figures out that Joy and Randy are each others’ first loves. From books about aliens who like to eat pussy and dote on their human lovers. From hair bands. From poems about Mountain Dew commercials. Memes. Pictures of Fry and Leela couples tattoos.

I don’t know if there is a point to this post. I have been in a mood for a while now. Feeling things, not feeling things. Writing, editing, deleting. Crying. I don’t know how to deal with myself other than writing, editing, and deleting. And leaving some of my compartments safely tucked away in my drafts folder so no one else has to deal with me either.

Daily Prompt

Posted on by Traumadoll

There are many things I could do more of (but probably won’t). I could get more exercise. I could vacuum more often. I could get out of the house more. I could be more efficient at my job. I could read more, I could write more. I could be more.

There are many things I could do more of.

But the first thing that came to mind was that I could reach out to the people I care about more. I could open up. I could talk about my feelings. I could try harder to connect. I could learn to be a person.

I picked up a new book of poetry by Courtney Peppernell and Zack Grey called The Space Between Us today and the very first page I flipped to reminded me of another thing I could do more of (but probably won’t). It’s barely a poem, more a whisper of a feeling. But it hooked me. And now after reading more of the book I’m thinking of things I could do (but probably won’t).

Five Years

Posted on by Traumadoll

Yeah, it’s over now
But I can breathe somehow

I spent my morning listening to The Girl on the Train on audiobook. I had to take a break because a passage brought up memories and I just need to get them out.

Eight years ago, I met a guy in a game. We bonded over shared interests. Horror movies. Metal. A dark sense of humor. He liked to talk and I liked to listen. Our friendship grew into something more, and five years ago I met him in person. Five years ago, I ended it.

I wish I could say it ended over something simple but ultimately harmless, like maybe he’d misrepresented himself. Truth is, he was exactly what he said he was except that everything he’d said was presented as humor. He was intense and volatile. Things that seemed like temper tantrums from a distance seemed dangerous in person. He frightened me. He was only in town for two days and I’d only spent a few hours with him, but it was enough. 11 out of 15 warning signs. I did some things I didn’t want to do, and then I made sure he got to the airport and back home before breaking up with him.

He wanted to maintain a friendship when it was over. I did not, but I also didn’t want to give him a reason to find a way to hurt me. He’d spent much of our relationship talking shit about his crazy exes. I remember when he was feeling particularly paranoid, he would threaten one woman via text and blame her for making him that way. So I agreed, and we’d spend evenings talking on Skype. He’d tell me about the prostitute he fucked when he got home. He’d tell me about the haggard old slut who flirted with him (she was his age and seemed like a lovely person). He blamed one woman for his jealousy issues. He blamed his mother for his existence. He blamed me for his erectile dysfunction during his visit. Conversation would inevitably devolve into me listening to him cry and asking me why women keep fucking him over.

He actually believed he was good to me.

I wrote a short note about the breakup on my old blog after I’d ended the attempt at friendship. An Alice in Chains song, a few lyrics, and a declaration that it was over and I was okay somehow. No details. He left a nasty accusatory comment and blew up my phone with texts and phone calls, just as he’d done when I left his hotel the first day and when he got home and when I broke up with him. The difference was that I was no longer responding. I was done.

I did learn from this experience. It is possible to feel trapped by someone you’ve never even touched. It is possible for someone who lives across the country to completely isolate you from friends and family. I wasn’t a bad person. I didn’t lead him on. His malfunction is not my fault.

Most importantly, it is possible to heal and get on with life. I think I’ll continue my book now.