I spent a great deal of today staving off an anxiety attack. A lot has been going on lately, you know? I’ve also got a lot of stuff coming up on the horizon like an international trip, a wedding I’m a part of, job applications, needing to move this summer, and way too much more (mostly work stuff I’m not putting here because that’s transient stress/venting and I want to avoid venting about my job on the internet). Plus, I’ve have had a few long-running relationships begin to crumble over the last couple days thanks to people choosing the dumb wizard game over doing the right thing in support of someone they cared about (me, a non-binary person). It’s been wearing on me, to the point that I am a confused mass of emotions and exhaustion that vascillates between wanting to collapse and feeling mostly fine (which is mostly me coping for work since I need to be at least a little present and presentable while I’m on the clock). I need rest, I need some quiet, I need some love and support from my friends, and I need to not hyperfixate on the latest Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom trailer.

I watched the latest Nintendo Direct right before writing this. Well, sorta. There was an hour of texing folks, frantic googling for where I could preorder the Collector’s Edition, and hitting the refresh button so many times I made my browser angry with me. But that feels like part of the Nintendo Direct when they announce stuff about the latest entry in my favorite game franchise of all time, which also happens to be the direct sequel to the game that holds space in my mind as marking the start of the last period of simple and uncomplicated joy in my life. Which, you know, is a lot to put on a video game. I’m legitimately worried I’m not going to be able to process these emotions before Tears of the Kingdom comes out and that I’ll wind up disappointed with a game I would have otherwise loved just as much as Breath of the Wild. It’s not fair to equate a game with a period of happiness in my life, even if it was a contributing factor.

Since Breath of the Wild has come out, I’ve grown apart from all of the friends I spent the day camped outside a Best Buy with. What used to be the last holdout has been one of the aforementioned disintegrating relationships, which means I’m feeling that loss particularly strongly right now. I’ve had a lot of bad living situations grow out of good ones. I’ve lost my grandfather. I’ve cut off contact with my entire family except two of my siblings. I’ve had exactly one romantic relationship that wound up being incredibly unhealthy for me (which is also what kicked off the on-going downward trend of my life). I’ve had to deal with horrible people at work. I’ve spent three years living through a pandemic as what increasingly feels like the only person interested in protecting themselves and those around them from catching and spreading COVID (I had a coworker today ask me, in reference to my mask, if I was still afraid after three years and while I appreciate the part our language barrier played in this offensive phrasing, it is still frustrating to have that be the first thing he said to me in-person after three years). I’ve lost what little dependability I had in my sleep schedule, thanks to the mounting stress and anxiety of my day-to-day life.

I’ve also grown a lot. I’m out and doing my best to be myself (though I’ll admit I’m still working on what that means). I’ve removed a lot of toxic people from my life. I’ve carefully and thoughtfully ended all the unhealthy relationships in my life. I’ve gotten into healthy writing and exercise habits. I’ve managed to get into an exhausting but productive work routine that’s allowing me to save money so that paying off my student loans and then buying a house doesn’t feel like an impossible dream anymore (just one that feels like an upsettingly distant one). I’ve started working on making new friends and trying to better appreciate the ones I still have after all these years. I’ve learned what I want out of my platonic and romantic relationships (mostly the former, though, since the latter has been largely conceptual given that I’ve been single for about five years now (also thanks to the pandemic making dating a daunting task)). I’ve managed to keep this blog up for a year and a half. I’ve done a lot.

I don’t know what the future brings (other than Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom on May 12th, 2023) but I know that all I can do right now is take my life one step at the time. It might be another eighty-six days before the game comes out (thirty-eight days until my trip, ninety-four until the wedding, and one hundred forty-two days until my lease in this mildly traumatic apartment ends), but I will do my best to take each one of those a day at a time. There’s not much else I can do at this point, after all. Most of the stuff I’m anxious about is in a holding pattern until I get news, enough time passes, or some of my on-going effort finally yields results. Until then, I’ve just got to keep pressing forward. And, you know, rewatching this LoZ trailer. I’m definitely not having a weird excitement-based anxiety attack because apparently all I needed to tip the scales on my anxiety was to get my heart rate up with excitement. Nope. Just a normal day for me.