As it turns out, it is not that easy to take a week off. Any other week would have been easier, since this last week involved the in-game bonding ceremony between my dearest friends’ Final Fantasy 14 characters (now they are married in real-life and in this video game) and I was as involved in that as I had the energy to be. Plus there was another wrestling event to record and edit, all the busyness of a “normal” workweek, the sudden extra busyness of this past week, and then the complete screeching halt of all of the work stuff for at least a day due to me twisting my ankle. And while twisting my ankle sucked, it did actually force me to rest in a way I couldn’t make myself until I actually had an unavoidable reason for it. But there’s still more celebrations tomorrow (as of the day I wrote this), the imminent return of my delayed obligations and plans, and now the exhaustion of painfully hobbling around my two-story apartment to contend with, so I’m not out of the woods yet. To be honest, given everything I’d done this week, I’m not sure I actually took a break the way I meant to and maybe just… Stopped doing as much. Which definitely counts for something, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not exactly what I was looking for with this decision to step away from things for a bit.

Still, even if I wound up spending a few more hours than I meant to chasing down a rather dull questline so I could get a postal worker hat in Final Fantasy 14 for a silly bit that wound up not really coming together (the other person who was going to get the hat had not done any of the quests, so it would have taken them twice as long as it took me), I had a lot of fun. The ceremony with my friends, delivering a couple prepared remarks, all the goofiness prompted by the photo contests involved… All of it was a lot of fun! Fun can still be tiring, though, and as I stare down the barrel of another long wrestling show, I’m finding myself wishing that I’d decided to take a break a week earlier so I’d (hopefully) be rested up for this one. I care enough about my friends to push through the tiredness and not regret it. I care enough about the wrestling stuff to stick it out despite the cost. I just also still wish I’d planned this better. Or at all. I kind of just hit a point where I knew I couldn’t keep things going as they were and didn’t have much choice other than to take a break from something. If I didn’t choose then, I’d have hit midweek, properly sometime during the celebration of my friends’ characters’ bonding and their real-life anniversary, where I would have had to drop everything anyway.

I think I might need to take another week. I don’t know. Some of the stuff I’ve put on hold is fun to do. Some of it is lucrative (in Final Fantasy 14). All of it is rewarding in some way or another. I don’t really want to not do stuff, is the problem. I like doing stuff! I like having purposeful things to do. I enjoy having an intent and following through on it. I just need to make sure I’m balancing the cost of things with the benefits I get from them. Which, lest I forget again, is an evolving equation. As my life shifts, and the roles I play in my social circles change, things cost more or less than they used to. I have new types of problems to deal with, as the person running a discord, running content groups, and trying to balance friendships with my need to be prepared to take moderator actions. As I take on more responsibilities in my Final Fantasy 14 guild not because I’m in a new position but just out of a desire to keep the lights on (for myself and for other people). As all of the above while I navigate worsening depression, changing workloads at my day-job, the increasing shittiness of the world around me, and the creeping feeling that I will not be able to hide behind my apparent identity for much longer. I don’t talk about the personal angle much, but it really takes it out of you when people in power are trying to legislate you out of existence (or at least make it illegal for you to be yourself) and you’re so busy trying to survive that all you can do is hope that your white, masculine-presenting appearance will simple stop anyone from questioning you ever.

I meant for this to be a happier post. The summary I wrote a few days back while I was planning my blog posts for the week was definitely much more positive. While I haven’t strayed from that summary, the actual tone is much less tiredly cheerful like I meant it to be. Some of that is definitely the fact that my ankle hurts like crazy every time I move my leg and I can’t find a position to rest it in that doesn’t hurt. The rest… Well, I’m tired and trying to write this during little breaks during my work day as another wrestling show looms ahead of me in less than an hour now and all I want to do is go lay down. I don’t want to record this. I do want to record it, of course. I want to be able to preserve these performances and I will find it rewarding when I eventually have a finished product. I just… Have a lot to do between now and then despite my attempts to cut down on my obligations. Somehow, despite my best intentions, that does not seem to have happened.