Fifteen

Who knew I would last in Second Life this long? When I first started in SL, I figured I'd stay a couple of hours. That's a very long couple of hours. :)

Wolfgang and I got back together earlier this year. For a few months.

But, as I said, a lot has happened in real life. And I couldn't justify losing sleep for a relationship that keeps me an arm's length away. I had to take care of me. Alone. We never stopped communicating by email, and we're starting again to see each other inworld, but rarely.

The friendship is still there. And he keeps his promise to never leave me no matter what happens between us.

I did not move to Washington State as I had planned last year. A lot has happened that caused my moved to be postponed several times. But I finally moved back to the Pacific Northwest late last month. Just across the Columbia River. That's this year's almost-August significant change in my life. :)

Life feels lighter at the moment. However, there has been a lot of uncertainty the past few years. The past year with COVID and the blatant racism in the US made me feel that uncertainty so much more. I try to quell the anxiety that's just lurking under the surface. I am well aware that life could change in an instant.

In my first couple of years in SL, I experience the pain of the world's transience. It was the nature of virtual worlds to keep changing. People and places disappeared quickly and too often. Lately, it feels like real life is imitating virtual life. 

I've never deleted any of my many alts. I've put them in hibernation, yes, but I can log them in again anytime, if I wanted to. Can't do that in real life.

But maybe I still have a few decades left. In RL and in SL.

 

Fourteen +

I just realized that I forgot to write a post for my 14th rez day! It just came and went. That's why the title of this post has a "+" in it. :)

But, as usual, August brings changes to my life. This time, to my real life. In August, I got approval to work remotely permanently, so I'm moving back to Washington State. California is my family's home, but it feels like Washington State is my soul's home.

For some reason, just the planning of the move already wakes up my muse. I'm getting so many creative ideas! Not just for SL, but also for real-life projects.

In fact, I'm relearning Blender (for the umpteenth time). Hopefully, it will be productive this time.

Earlier this year, I let Wolfgang go after I realized that the relationship will never be balanced. I was surprised that it affected him much more than I expected. We remain good friends; we still share news by email, he still tries to seduce me, but we don't meet anymore. I still adore him; that won't change. But I was wasting time and effort on something that doesn't give back as much as I give. By a mile.

So, this time, I'm loving me and taking care of me. And I'm creating again.

Thirteen

Again, August proves to be life-changing. Real life has a big influence this time. My mother passed away on August 11 this year.

Caring for her was a big part of my life in the past seven and a half years. And now, that responsibility has been lifted from my shoulders.

I've been alone before, but now the aloneness feels different. In the past, it always felt like an adventure, an assertion of my independence. This time, I'm not sure how it feels. At least, not yet.

It feels quiet. It feels peaceful. It feels like I could breathe again. It feels zen-like. I am more in the moment. I have more patience about the few minutes that it takes to do something simple and mundane. I stopped rushing.

I've spent less and less time in Second Life the past few years because of the real-life demands on my time, including my own health and job issues. I still don't have the luxury of time as I did when I first started SL, but now I have a little bit more. But is that enough?

A dear friend said that life doesn't have meaning. I know that. Life inherently doesn't have meaning, so we must individually give it meaning. I lost the meaning in my real life many years ago. And I think I've lost the meaning in my Second Life too.

But I'm still here. In a new phase of my life. Undefined. Uncertain.

In search for new meaning.

Land shifts

I'm moving... both in SL and in RL.

Actually, my SL moves have already occurred.  If only RL moves were as easy.

Skull Mountain

I had been thinking of lowering my tier and the easiest way to do it is by giving up the quarter sim in Fendahl.  When I was still thinking of moving Mer Betta there, I didn't know how to build the ground level, but I saw a build in an RFL fair that would be perfect.  It was a mountain island with rocks shaped like a skull and a cove with a pirate ship in it.  So I talked to the creator who was very gracious and told me where to get the sculpt maps for the skull and he even gave me the texture that he created for it.  I decided to make my own texture so I could match it with the other rocks that I wanted. That was where I filmed my first Mer Betta ad.

A stereoscopic pair showing Skull Mountain. The platform was temporarily installed for my 5th rez day anniversary.

Anyway, I met Micah in July 2010 soon after I bought that parcel.  She was a friend of the previous owner, and she logged in on the parcel when I was building it. So I asked her first if she wanted to take it over, because the land had sentimental value to her.  Otherwise, I would just abandon the land to Gov Linden.  She wanted it, and so I transferred the land to her on the 20th of the month.  (My tier is charged every 21st of the month.)  I gave her copies of the objects that I could transfer, including the skull and the elephants on top of the skull.  I left some of my things that I couldn't transfer until she could purchase them herself.

A view of the west from the south side of Skull Mountain.

Unfortunately, that wasn't enough to move my tier down because most of my lands were deeded to groups in order to get more prim allowance.  So I had to give up two more parcels in Aglia that were given to me as gifts.  Now, I'm down to just my parcels in Aglia and Zeuzera (including my very first 512 sqm plot) and the parcel in Dunbeath where I have the Mer Betta store, the Ms.O.Lei-ny store, and the recording studio for "Talk, Like Dim Sum".

A home with Wolfgang

I don't remember how the conversation started about finding a new home, but I got nervous about Alt #27 and Alt #32 being associated with Opal/Treasure and my RL.  So, we decided (actually, it was more my decision) to find a place that was really our own.  Not just mine.

In a sense, it was a good decision, because I had to give up the parcel we were on anyway.

The first parcel was a beautiful location in the water but the owner was a jerk, because he wanted us to pay for the prims of an ugly build that he refused to remove.  I was pissed.  Wolfgang was more sympathetic to the owner (which pissed me off even more), so I told him to deal with the owner himself.  I wanted to leave; he wanted to work it out.  I asked him if he was attached to the land and he replied that he wasn't attached to material things.  I said I'd rather be homeless than deal with jerks like that owner.  It was that statement that prompted him to say, "ok ok ... let's leave."  And we started picking up our things.

I wanted to just let the rent expire, because we figured the owner wouldn't refund us the difference anyway.  But W wanted to be polite, so he informed the landlord when I refused to.  The landlord later replied, proving himself even more of a jerk.  W finally conceded that it was a good idea to get as far away as possible from people like that.

At first I couldn't understand why W wanted to stay so bad that he and I fought about it.  Then I realized there were two reasons -- he himself deals with renters, and it was the first home that was truly equally ours.  Like his comment about making plans about the future, giving up a jointly shared home probably made him nervous about our future together.  In a sense, he was fighting for our future together.

Anyway, we went back to a private-sim parcel that we saw earlier and we started building it, avoiding the use of Opal's stuff and searching for freebies and cheapies instead.  The ground level is practically done.



Meanwhile, I keep sorting and packing for my RL move ....

My SL flashing before my eyes

I don't know why, but I feel incredibly sentimental today. Memories float in and out of my mind.  Memories throughout the past six years.  Events, places, lovers.

It's like my life is flashing before my eyes.

I feel homesick for what used to be.  What SL used to be.  What *my* SL used to be.

It's like that time when LL introduced windlight.  The light inworld changed and it felt like a whole different world.  And I missed the old light.

It's like when LL first allowed you to change the volume for the UI and the wind separately.  They turned those sounds down and it felt like a whole different world.  I had to turn up the UI sounds, and some sounds are different now.  And I never heard the wind again.


I'm scrambling to finish the book trailer before Friday when I plan to get the book live on Amazon.  If I weren't busy with the book trailer and with current lovers, I'd probably be more an emotional mess.  I cried after I finished sorting out the formatting issues for the upload.  I cried again today because the release date is so close.

I guess I always feel like this during life transitions. My old SL is dying.  I suppose my old RL is too.

Almost exactly eight years ago, as I was preparing to move to Minneapolis to start my MBA program, I wrote something in my RL personal blog about "Lea soup."  Here's an excerpt:

"... while on the treadmill, I was reading an article in "O" (Oprah's magazine, of course) about how we go about reinventing ourselves. It started with a story about how caterpillars actually shed their skin in a cocoon and become a glop. "Caterpillar soup," the author said. The article went on saying that we also become "people soup" when the world falls apart, when the ground shakes.

"Maybe this move is forcing me into the "people soup" phase. If I bring only the bare necessities, I give myself room to be redefined, to be reinvented."

It's like SL has been my cocoon for the past five or six years.  I had "hidden" from the real world and became a glop as I searched for who I am and who I am meant to be.  And now, the cocoon is cracking.  My wings are unfolding.

And that is damn scary.