Shiny Azure’s Weblog

Its funny, if I manage to bring myself to consciousness before a reasonable hour (and after far too few hours of sleep), there is an early-morning somewhat-sleepy peace that settles and encourages me to actually tune out my morning routine of chores; encouraging me to sit down and write.For five years, as of last weekend, my dear kiddo (dk, my only living child, the joy of my heart) has been waking during the wee hours of the morning for his “morning-snack”/morning drink/to cuddle/to snuggle/because he’s bored with sleeping/ or simply to inform us (as has been for the past year or so) that “Its morning time, its the moon’s turn to sleep!”I always believed that the morning was a good thing to experience some of the time, as I’m part of that generation who tends to be working jobs in which 9-5 is a rarity (call centres suck, that’s another rant); but mostly good for finding a quiet place to sleep in a patch of sunshine. The best sleeps happen in a patch of sunshine, which is why naps tend to be so rejuvenating right? But no my son thinks differently, the living belief my parents tried to emboss into my head of “early to bed and early to rise”, because to him, the morning-time is the best time of day to play. So great, that it ranks up there with afternoon, evening, and after bedtime heehee.

Normally this is our special time, since his father works a ridiculous amount of hours and needs to sleep in the morning before the Masters That Be haul him back into work to rescue them from the actions of stupid people. However lately, … ok more than lately, since moving back to this gods forsaken province, I’ve been under so farking much stress that sleep is hard to come by at night, and by the time morning does come I haven’t head near enough t0 function properly. In fact, if this post makes any sense, I’ll be thoroughly amazed

My unstress activity, since I’m a SAHM while living here, and can’t finish my schooling until I’m able to get back to Ontario, is online RP. I’m part of a channel containing some friends I’ve known as long as five years, some of whom are from home in Ontario. Friends who walked me through being abandoned by my common-law spouse/fiance, being bullied and threatened, being left homeless because someone who’d offered to help me get on my feet for 2 months decided he wanted to help one of his guy-friends avoid his responsibilities to his wife and kids (real winners there >.<), and because of all this crashing hard from the collective mayhem the Universe dumped on my family to see how resilient we are.

Problem is, hobbies should be fun, and this really isn’t fun anymore. My friend’s son (a very wise child) once said “mommy you go play to have fun, and you’re not having fun. You’re sad. If it isn’t fun why do you go there to play?” Truer words have never been spoken.

At the time, I’d have just said “because fun comes with stress, everything comes with stress, this is just the stress I enjoy more.” and wouldn’t really have thought more of it. But 7 years taught me a lot of stress management, and how precious our moments can be. Life is short and our time is uncertain and without guarantee, it shouldn’t be spent on anything that doesn’t bring you joy or secure the happiness and security of your family and those who depend on you because they can’t take care of themselves (this covers work to pay the bills, and getting up at o’dark thirty to supervise a preschooler). But even then, even during the mundane responsibilities we in the adult-culture need to endure and deal with as a part of every day life … where is the joy?

Perhaps this little boy had a point after all beyond the obvious. When young children learn, they do so more easily and more quickly during play; no word of a lie, my son is pretty much a self-taught reader, and was pushing being able to wrap his brain around multiplication and division before his 4th birthday. <<Insert Reader Rabbit and Jump Start Preschool plug here>> Educational toys, songs, games, videos; practicing and learning skills in different ways … when I was in high school, I’d have grumbled about homework or being pushed to try to quickly grasp concepts that were beyond my current comfort-zone. Watching my dk, it occurs to me that he’s embracing a world of discovery and change just like we all did as teenagers, not with complaint but with excitement and anticipation. He find the fun and the joy in what he’s doing, he PLAYS. Simply plays, and fiddles with the new things introduced to him until it makes sense to him, then he plays to see what new things his discoveries can lead him to. Life to him, the wide world outside, is all a game waiting to be explored. He doesn’t stress, he just finds something to pour his curiosity in to.

Why can’t we do the same? I’ve actually tried this, taken the time to let go of my need to work myself to misery, and too pleasure in the simple ability to be able to play while I was working. Sketching while on the phones at work, dancing to music with the kiddo while home doing chores, letting the sunshine soak into me like a flower while trudging down the hill to the grocery store. Holy fark it was the best week I’d had in my entire life lol.

This was a couple years ago when my son was still learning a most of the skills he has now, but I haven’t looked back. It was like coming home, it really was, re-learning to find joy and sunshine in even the most mundane of activities.

Games and the stress that come with them (as all gamers know, stress and personality conflicts happen as we’re a passionate bunch ) isn’t that much different from a job, or from a game, or a bunch of house-mates hanging around in the living room.

There’s going to be stress, there’s going to be topics of discussion or play that makes someone uncomfortable, there’s going to be hurt feelings and shouting matches, there’s going to be people who are bored but just keep tossing around “what do you want to do?” and “I don’t know, what do YOU want to do?” until we all tear our hair out in frustration.

Having the people abandon one person so they can have a private scene and exclude them, really upsets me. Having people do private rp that excludes a player who is present and ic as well, also upsets me. I think its thoughtlessly cruel, even though most players have no idea they’re running their playmate off or creating a very uncomfortable place for the excluded person to be. There are nicks I shudder to see, because I’ve been chased out of play by them so they could have couple-time in a public channel and ignore the other people ic for one person … which is sad because the nicks often belong to someone I care for like a sibling, and I have a personal ethic to not inflict on someone the nightmares and hurts I’ve received from other people, or discomfort I wouldn’t want to experience myself. Maybe this just makes it hurt more deeply, because these people are my friends.

But the fact remains, the good times kick ass. We support each other, we entertain each other, we bitch at each other about keyed or afk stresses that are upsetting us, and we smack each other if the other person needs it. Yes we all need to be <whacked> from time to time

There is joy in creating a story, and creating something that lets your friends can get lost in with their imagination for a little bit and go adventuring. Like writing a suspense novel over a long period of time with friends, just … not in person or over coffee, and not having it published because its private, only for you and your friends to share and reminisce about.

As frustrated as I get, and even though the stress sometimes makes me want to hit my head against a wall, we’re a team and they’re a great bunch. The joy I find when we kick back ic or ooc to play, or when we’re taken on an adventure by whomever happens to feel like leading a scene, is well worth the stress and heartaches that happen.

If only we could all find this place, where we can find joy and sunshine in something small we can have every day. I wish I’d found it sooner, but well crying over things we can’t change never changed anything. All we can do is nibble on a frozen grape and embrace what we DO have that makes us happy, and let that which doesn’t rest in the past as a lesson learned.

~Shiny Azure