Emptiness and Stuff

I don’t come out much anymore; when I do, it’s to game or use the computer. One of the things I do is play World of Warcraft, but it seems that “I” told my guild that I needed to take a break a couple of weeks ago. I guess I get it, I haven’t been as active lately, and I can’t expect Saoirse to play on raid nights when I’m not around to keep my guild attendance up. But, on the other hand, I think it’s a little rude because I’ve worked when Saoirse wasn’t around. You’d think a little reciprocity would be in order.

Also, in the rude category, my user account didn’t have admin permissions to the cafe when I logged in today. Hopefully, that just means Saoirse was using my account to test how the site looked as a normal user and forgot to put my access back? I’m the one who started the damn blog; you’d think I’d keep access to it. Fortunately, our password manager makes it easy to log in as each other, so I was able to log in as Saoirse and grant myself access. I’m sorely tempted to take away Saoirse’s perms, but that might lead to a battle that no one would win.

That’s not why I’m posting here, though. It was the whole empty-shell member post that caught my eye.

Boy, can I relate! For 25ish years I was our host. And as host, I was a confused, empty shell. Like a lot of this dissociative stuff, even thinking about it makes me kind of start to check out, so this may not be a long post. I was made to be a “normal” (ha!) face to the world, and I had (still have) very limited access to trauma memories and such. I shuffled through life, kind of like the undead. Shuffle, shuffle, “braaaaaaiiinnns”.

In a way, I was indeed undead. I was animate, but did I have a life, a soul? I’m not sure I had either, at least a lot of the time. It’s taken decades for me to start to figure out who I am. Sure, I can be funny and playful, but inside I’m still largely empty. Missing memories. Missing strong emotions. Missing my humanity. That’s part of why I retired as host. I didn’t want to be “the host” anymore; I wanted to figure out who I was outside of a system role or job. I just wanted to step back and focus on me, not on adulting, not on the others in the system, just me. Maybe that’s selfish, but after 25 years of service, I felt I was due. I never got a chance to be a child – I came into being when we were around 20. I’ve been empty since the day I was “born”. I need time to kick back, play video games, and discover who I am. Because I’ve found that no one – in the system or without – can truly fill that emptiness but me.