chronomancy (Patreon)

oh my god i have been away for two weeks and in that time patreon changed the layout and made everything take like thirty seconds apiece to load what the heck
it's okay i'll get used to it... but... no dark mode yet? maybe this was in preparation for it? surely that's it, yes... this isn't copium....

hello, loves. it's been a few weeks since we last talked. in that time, i've played some video games, hosted our annual summer party, started storytelling in DnD for the first time, and have generally been trying to pick the scattered pieces of myself up off the ground to be ready to get back to work.

i originally hoped that maybe around now, start of july, is when i'd be ready to get the ball rolling on some things again.... and... kind of! i really was out there looking at video games and thought ("huh it would be fun to make a rhythm game someday"), entirely forgetting that that's literally our next project. i really tried to play one (1) sRPG and had to put it down  after a few hours because it just feels incomplete to me. there are so many things i want it to do differently and so many missed opportunities that it's just a little bit frustrating to play. independent of its shortcomings, it also just has me Thinking about all the things i want to do-- and i've gotta do something with that energy. 

on the other hand, i still feel like i blinked and this month flew by. that might just be the nature of time. i feel like i would like the entire summer as a break  to try and catch up with myself-- but i'm not really willing to leave both all of you here and everyone on our team, hanging that long. and also, there's no guarantee a couple of months would change anything. 

it blinked and flew by-- i've pretty much always felt that way, even before i was running a community or making games. the crunch might be more severe since reborn started, but also i started doing both of those things around the time i was 10, so that's a pretty long 'before'. 

i remember being eight and laying on the futon at my dad's place in the summer swelter, feeling outright paralyzed with apathy. i just could not will myself to do anything-- to the point that i really laid there questioning if i had some kind of neurological problem that prevented me from sitting up and finding something to do. obviously ridiculous. but i wasted a lot of time in that state.

and then i started becoming aware of just how much time i was wasting.
this was my critical, life-ruining mistake.
i don't recall when i learned of mortality as a kid, but it wasn't news-- i knew i had a limited clock and it was ticking. and so i got rather quickly preoccupied with the idea of not wasting time. 

• why walk home from school at a comfortable speed when i can push myself and arrive faster? 
• i should walk across neighborhood streets at a diagonal to match the beeline to my destination as much as possible to save the fractions of seconds (my friend and i charted and mathed the differences in time out, as a kids-- between walking to the end of the street and turning and walking diagonal all the way across. it saves miliseconds. we lost the time measuring it.) 
• there is no time to sleep-- at 3 am, children should wake up and be playing to their fullest! 
• i even intentionally broke the clock i had in my room as an eight year old-- the ticking was a constant reminder of everything slipping away. then i arranged the hands into a peace symbol as a way of 'making peace with time'. (you'll find the broken clocks in the dev room in reborn a reference to that. )

at the same time, i thought, i should kill myself when i turn 30. that way i'll never be old.
...so i turn 30 this month.
rest assured, i'm have no plans of still doing that.
but i wonder where i got all those strong opinions from at such a young age.

anyway, during my time off, i realized what my problem is. what my problem has been. ever since i was a kid, i mean.

...isn't it just a matter of pessimism? 

we have all this time and i am only focusing on the negatives-- of when i don't have it.  

• i don't have time for X because i have to work. 
• i have aikido class on tuesday so i may as well not even try and plan anything else around it, the day's just gone. 
• gotta go to the store in a few hours? i mean, let's just sit around and have executive function until then. 
• i've already spent a third of my lifespan on a generous estimate

....from what i hear, it's somewhat common, isn't it?
just pessimism.
what does that do for anyone !!!!

i read psychology books growing up that explained the difference between optimists and pessimists. it was in the context of a quiz about "which one are you?" and i distinctly recall it said "the world needs both".
but does it tho.
i have my issues, but i ultimately consider myself an optimism. and i see a lot of things to like about optimism! but pessimism? i mean, pure pessimism could not even find something to like about itself, by its own nature. no, it is just useless and damage!! especially with something like this. 

so i have decided i am done being anxious and pessimistic about the passage of time, i am over it, i have better things to think about, and frankly?
the reverse-- rather than assuming that i don't have time, assuming that i do  have time, and asking, where is it? has been super helpful for motivating me to make the most of it. because i do have hours before the appointment, before i go to sleep, when i'm not sleeping, etc, and they are there to be used!
there is time for everything if we simply choose to accept it. i am not accepting arguments to the contrary. 

this is my own personal form of chronomancy.
(i'm only level 1 or 2 in the chronomancy subclass, but i'll level up soon don't worry <3)

so, rather than waiting until i Feel Ready, i'd like to just consider myself back. and i have the ability to navigate that and balance work with the time i need off as i go.
[/character development]

...which is all well and cool and all, and i would love to end this post saying that we're schmovin' forward...
....which was my original plan when i intended to post this five days ago...

unfortunately, i suddenly came down with a fever out of nowhere.
tested negative for the rona at least.
i'm either mostly or entirely over the fever part of it, but i feel like i have a passive, enduring -12% debuff to everything right now, and also my tongue is turning colors in spots again (not a joke-- happened once before, but only once. i don't understand.) so i think i'm still going to be taking a few days to rest and get back on my feet.

but then.
then it's all over for everyone.
we're all goin' down.
or up, idk.
we're going somewhere
the fact that you all are still here for it means the world to me though
thank you thank you thank you