I wasn't ready for this

I haven't been playing long, and I hadn't been playing much recently because I've been so busy offline, but even in the short time I was on Glitch I felt very much like I'd found an online "home" I was comfortable in.

At the beginning of October my 17-year-old cat stopped eating. Blood tests and radiographs turned up nothing; appetite stimulants and prescription food and painkillers did nothing. As she began to waste away I had her put to sleep at the end of the month--thirteen years of kindness and love from her, gone. I cried so hard I threw up when I got home.

And then I got on Glitch.

I guess I've always been prone to wanting escapism, and Glitch was such a perfect venue for it. The people were sweet and friendly, the jokes gentle and good-natured, the details perfect. Naturally a few hours on a game couldn't erase my grief, but they eased it enormously. I had a thought as I logged off to go cry myself to sleep: "I have made a mistake. Glitch is always going to be bound up with grief for me now."

And maybe it was, given that I drifted away for a while after that, logging on only to pet my piggies and harvest my collectors and chat a few lines in Global. I don't know. But I knew Glitch was THERE--knew that Ur was there, and giants, and butterflies, and the Rube--and it felt more like a place than any game I've ever played.

When my boyfriend sent over the announcement he confessed to me, "I'm not even upset in the way I thought I'd be. I keep thinking, 'what will happen to the Giants?' instead of being sad I can't play any more."

I did a little weeping when I set my piggies free in Groddle and loosed all my Cubis with love. I got choked up reading a conversation with a Patch about the nature of existence; I choked up again listening to GNG. I didn't play this game much, but I DID bind it up with grief. And now I'm grieving Ur, and the giants, and the fruit trees. I'm ugly crying today, not as hard as I did when I left the vet's office, but close. I wasn't ready to go through it again. It gets worse when I think of all the Tiny Speck employees who are left without work after the layoffs, because it makes me feel stupid and childish to mourn a game when people are losing their jobs before the holidays of all times, and then my guilt makes me weepy again. I think if I hadn't played Glitch that night after I let Sybil go I wouldn't be so upset right now, but it's hard to say. Glitch was a Magic Thing.

I don't know why I felt the need to post all this, I just did.

Posted 12 years ago by Thaumatrope | Permalink