So, 30 minutes on the timer and a lot of things on my mind. God, where to start.

Last week Mike and I had a talk about how much time I've been spending in game, what that's all about and how he feels about it. It was again brought to my attention that I've been avoiding my life. And that my starting in the game also coincided with a fairly shitty spring.

The biggest thing that sticks with me is the idea that I've been avoiding my failure. Not that I don't want to be an active part of my life, but my life also includes this big pink elephant in the room of the slow excruciating death of my business. SkyWorks has been finished for a long time now. I just haven't been able to accept or even face the reality.

I have nice polite letters asking where my PST remittance is piling up on my desk. I have an actual order sitting in my SW inbox that I can't be shifted to deal with because it means I have to actually pay attention to the fact that it's my first order in almost 2 months and it's for 10 bucks. I haven't made soap in months upon months. I have no inspiration and no desire for this anymore.

I just don't want to let it go.

I don't want to admit that I failed at something else in my life. That even though I busted my ass, it still failed and barely got above a trotting start. I don't want to go back to the drawing board to figure out what the fuck I'm going to do with my life. I don't want to figure out how to balance my PTSD, the simple fact that I'm always afraid, and my intense desire to have a normal life. I just wanted this to work. And it didn't.

But, I'm no quitter. I might say I am about a million times over, but I'm still here. Everything I have in my life I fought for and is infinitely precious because of that. So I need to cut this dead weight from me and try again.

So. I'm closing SkyWorks down. I'm going to take the time this week and do a real inventory, and then I'm going to drop everything price wise to half and I'm going to let all my former customers know. Then I'm going to turn around and donate whatever is left to a local woman's shelter. I may sell off my FOs and EOs, I may keep them for the someday hope that I'll make soap for myself again. But I'm going to let this lass go.

And with that money I'm going to buy a plane ticket to a con in Washington, DC that my flag is having. I'm going to hug my friends I've made in these past months. I'm going to have raunchy girl chat with the women I'm sharing a room with. I'm going to have geeky conversations and laugh my ass off. I'm going to do this because even though I am shy and scared shitless, I've always had so much fun meeting other people.

And after that, and before that, I'm going to figure out who I am now. Where I fit in my life. What I want, and how I want to get it. This con is one of the first things I've actually wanted in such a long time now that I stop to think about it. I've gotten complacent. I've given into my fear.

I think I needed the time to regroup. The years I spent in hospital, in out-patient therapy, were so fucking hard. I think I burned out on wanting to be able to live so goddamned much. Maybe, I worked so hard and wanted it so much that I forgot being able to live is also just a matter of taking the day to day and being there.

So maybe instead of doing my usual bullshit of sitting back and thinking everything to death, I'm going to just do shit. I'm going to go to this Tai Chi class, because I've always been curious about it and I think it looks cool. I'm going to keep playing my silly game, because I have this community of friends that I play with and that's fucking awesome. I'm going to spend more time with Miss Sara, because she's so smart and awesome. I'm going to kidnap Mike and try to shake up his boring life a bit too. I'm going to have my intense, honest talks with Matt when we can. I'm going to talk boys with Karin and laugh my ass off at how impossibly foulmouthed we end up. I'm going to "Dude. Your Mama." with Ed every morning because it's just what we do.

I think I've decided to live again. What a fucking awesome feeling.

Phew.

So I just wrote and deleted several ranty forum posts for my flag forum. They're discussing "Wargames" and I'm absolutely foam at the mouth opposed. See, in the game if two flags declare war on each other, any PvP battles between them are sinking. That means if I fuck up my battle navigation in the battle, I could lose my ship and every thing on it. To the pro side this adds excitement and fun to their daily game playing. To me... well... every time I think about it I want to quit the game and go throw up somewhere.

War to me is not fun, ever. War is disgusting and wrong. To take war and make it into a game insults the people that the word War means dead friends, dead family, dead cultures. I guess I'm a big old bleeding hippy about this. Kinda. If my home, my country were at risk I'd go to war. That's the same thing within this game. But to do it because some jaded old-timer is bored? I'm sickened. Absolutely sickened.

I know it's just a game. But in many ways it's not. I've put months into this game. Each ship I sail has a story behind her. I've worked harder at this game than anything else in my life for far too long. *laughs* So to have someone propose that I have two choices, stop playing or risk my ships, just infuriates me. Every time this subject comes up I get a raging headache.

Am I wise enough to post "I cannot deal with this concept. I must walk away from it." In the various threads about it? Of course not. But I really should. Maybe I will tonight.

And that's a much overdue 15 minutes.

Last thought: Have these people never seen the movie? Dude.