A while back, I decided I was going to write on essay of some kind per week. A longer post, more contemplative or reflective than my usual pieces, with the goal of getting back to the style of critical analysis that I used to enjoy when I was still a student (and still enjoy to this day, even if I site fewer sources and never produce a proper MLA bibliography). I even did it a couple times until I started writing this post and then… Well, I ran aground on the problem at the heart of this and have been too burned out and beaten-down by life to push myself to contemplate it further. Because I started playing Wanderstop again. I got further and then, after a couple hours of play, ran into a hurdle I could not get over at the time. I still can’t get over it. And so I haven’t returned to the game despite how much I love its concept, art style, writing, and whole entire deal. No other game has forced me to confront my own habits and burnout and compartmentalized problems like this game has and it has proven more than I can handle while in the midst of… well, being stuck in a mire of problems I have no means of rapidly escaping. I cannot hide from it forever, though, and while I’m not sure my heart can handle diving back into it yet, I think I’m finally ready to return to whatever this winds up being.

This post will contain spoilers for the end of the first part of the game Wanderstop (only a couple hours in, depending on how focused you are) and unveil the first twist. If this is a game you will eventually play, I suggest you stop reading here and go experience it for yourself. It will not land the same if you know what is coming.

After almost 9 months, I returned to Wanderstop. I stopped playing back in April of 2025 because I could not handle seeing myself so brilliantly (blindingly) reflected in the protagonist, but I decided to spend my free and largely unclaimed New Year’s Eve(ning) to get back into it. I was weeks into a restful vacation, afterall, and while I didn’t have yet another week after that, I still had a few more days and figure I could spend those on the game. Instead, I played through just long enough to get to the first… “Twist” feels wrong, but it was unexpected on an axis I didn’t even know to try to anticipate. It was more than I bargained for and so, once things had settled past that point, I stopped playing for the evening, did something else for the rest of the night, and then never got around to going back to it despite my goal of finishing the game before I returned to Final Fantasy 14.

This is a game that reflects the parts of me that I am simultaneously most aware and least willing to look at. I have spent years constantly pushing forward, driving myself ever onward with little time to rest, until it has begun to leave me incapable of pushing myself anymore. I haven’t stopped in decades. I have been in school or working for two decades now, ever since I stopped being homeschooled, and haven’t taken off more than two weeks in a row in all that time (and even that is relatively recent). I only made it that far by not thinking about it, by refusing to acknowledge the growing weariness I felt, and then last year happened. I hit a barrier. I pushed myself too hard one time and collapsed afterward. The promised month of rest never came. I had to continue limping along because every thing I did to try to rest after that got me talked to by my boss despite all my work still getting done. And I tried to play Wanderstop, to witness something I knew would be a harsh reflection, but I did not know how bad it would be until I finally ripped away everything I’d used to deny how poorly I was doing, which I fled from. I couldn’t handle it since I knew that I needed to stop and rest but I could not afford it.

So I limped along for nine more months, took another rest, and this time I was able to face my reflection. I’d already stripped away all the illusions. I’d come face-to-face with the total collapse of myself and the harsh reality that I could not just carry on no matter how I felt about it, and come to terms with it. Difficult, unhappy terms, but still terms. I was ready to face the gentle chiding of someone telling me things I knew were true, I knew I needed to do, but that I couldn’t do. Not because I couldn’t face them this time, but because I literally cannot afford to work too much less. The months since then have seen me work much less than usual–now a requirement just to keep making it from one month to the next–and my finances have gotten rather tight as a result. I could not give myself the grace and rest and peace that the game so deeply encouraged, that I so fundamentally knew I needed. But I had the strength and self-awareness, finally, to carry on with this game regardless, in the hopes of eventually getting any kind of ending that might give me some vicarious relief.

I did not make it that far. I hit the first of what looks like might be several stopping points as the people I’d been interacting with fell prey to their own problems and my character’s ability to understand what they were saying or wanting vanished. Gone was the rapport we had built. Gone was every bit of work we’d done together save what pictures I’d taken and framed. Now they were each of them consumed by whatever problem they’d been ignoring until it took over them. Much like me. Much like the protagonist, Alta. Consumed by a problem we’d let go until we were unable to express it or even ourselves to the people around us. All these people were clearly asking for help, clearly needed something that I (and Alta) probably could have provided, but they could no longer communicate what it was they thought they needed, much less what they actually needed.

As if that harsh reflection of my own life and the conversations I’ve had with many of my closest friends was not enough, the solution provided by Boro, the wise owner of the Wanderstop tea shop we’re helping out in, wound up changing everything. Literally. The ritual and reflection to ask the spirit watching over this place for what I (Alta) needed to address what was going ended with the game resuming in a familiar but incredibly altered world. The blues and greens had vanished, replaced by reds and yellows. A lush world still existed in these autmunal colors, but things were in different places now. Gardens I’d spent time building and growing were gone. Tea mugs I’d collected, including my favorite that I reserved for my own use, had vanished, some of them possible never to be seen again. Every trace of what I’d done before, besides some of what was in my pockets and the photos I’d stuck in frames, was gone.

I spent about ten minutes wandering around, taking in the new space, trying to find traces of all the work I’d done, of everything I’d accomplished, and even the little weirdos I’d come to enjoy. Once I gave up on that, I finally turned back to Boro, who the game wanted me to talk to, and asked what happened to everything I’d done? Where did all the work I’d done go? Why had this happened to me? When he responded that this was probably what I needed, even if it wasn’t what I wanted, I again chose to voice my frustration (which was pretty much the only option, but I felt exactly the way that Alta did). This time, Boro gently chided me that it was done, there was no going back, and that he was disappointed as well because he had also put a lot of work into the place that was now all gone. After that, he told me we had to make the best of the situation we found ourselves in, and then walked away. I watched him for a minute and then saved and exited the game. It was nearly midnight, and I was not ready to deal with everything I felt as I recognized another truth I was not ready to face even if I knew I’d need to face it anyway, in real life if not in game. I was also facing a potential situation where everything I’d done was going to e wiped out. Where all my time spent was going to potentially slip away from me without a trace. I’d been thinking about changing jobs, after all, and my main hesitation was that it meant I’d probably need to start over again. I’d leave a place where I had spent almost a decade, people I’d known nearly a decade, and start over not because I wanted to, but because it was what I needed.

It has been four months, almost exactly, since that day and I have not gone back yet. The studio that made the game is largely closed. I’ve been job hunting for a touch over three months now and haven’t gotten so much as a single rejection despite sending out an average of five applications a week. I’ve come to terms with how my time is valued, what I feel is a waste of my time, and what I need to find a way to do so I can stop being so burned out. I am no closer to making any improvements or accomplishing any goals, but I’m more aware. More accepting. It unfortunately doesn’t mean anything for how I’m doing–since I’m more burned out than ever–nor does it enable me to go back to Wanderstop–because now I’m too tired for that kind of emotional journey–but at least I’ve mostly mentally processed it. It really sucks that I’ve landed in this spot. Ready to move on but unable to because there’s no jobs and I can’t afford to take less pay. Hell, I can barely even afford to not work a ton of overtime constantly. So all the lessons learned about accepting life as it happens and not clinging too tightly to the work I’ve done once it has served its purpose won’t do anything for me but maybe prevent me from getting worse as quickly as I was before. Instead, all I can really hope for is enough of a raise come July that I can work a little less or maybe a miraculous job application that somehow breaks past the “no response” barrier I’ve been trapped behind for months now.

Small hopes, but it’s what I’ve got. That and maybe finding enough internal fortitude to go back to a game that has me absolutely dead-to-rights so I can be forced to confront whatever other layers of ontinuously burning myself I’ve hidden or learned to ignore.