Thomas Wolfe was right

Thomas Wolfe once said, You can never go home again.


In my mind’s eye when I used to hear that term I thought he meant, home as in, your childhood home, you’re parents and your relatives. Unfortunately that’s not the case. It doesn’t just touch on your childhood and the things that went on there. It’s talking about any point in time in your life where you once had a home and now you’ve moved on.

How do I know this?

I learned it the hard way. For some of you, you’ve followed along, for others; well you’re probably scratching your head wondering what I’m talking about.

Eight months ago, after almost six years of marriage, I woke up one morning and had a moment of clarity. I was in a situation where I was giving until I couldn’t give anymore and then asked to give again. I had reached my limit. I was living in a situation where my wife had been constantly drugged for the last two years. I had lacked in the many departments that help us get our needs met and all I was doing was care giving for someone who didn’t give about anything.

I gave her one month. I told her that if she could show me something, anything in that month that gave me some hope, that showed me that perhaps she did care. I would reevaluate the situation, stick around and work things out. The month came and went, I went with it.

The first couple of months were the hardest, I won’t lie. Having known that I would come home to the same person and be given a respite from life was warm and welcoming and suddenly I was living without it. I was living without the safety net that I had become accustomed to.

In the end, the edge of being alone got the best of me and I made some sad decisions when it came to dating, ask around and you’ll be told exactly what I’m talking about. It felt like a build up of crap, one bad thing to the next. Then I met someone who I thought was genuine and at the end of it I was still staring at the same issues that I had when I started.

Nothing went right for me. Be it by Devine design or just by bad decisions, I felt like the opposite of King Midas, where everything turned to dung.

Near the end of the year a few things happened. In October, I had a car accident, the vehicle in question was totaled but I was able to walk away without a scratch. Within the month I was able to get a new car for a small sum that was better than the one I had.

The relationship I had been nurturing it slowly and as quietly as possible. Not wanting any ripples, hoping that it wasn’t just a smoke screen, fell apart right in front of me in the span of two weeks. Like a bad paper-Mache that had finally dried out and started to crack under it’s own flaws. There was nothing to be done for it. I had to let it go.

Just as that was coming to a close I got a bombshell at the beginning of December. I was being kicked out. The owners of the apartments I was living in wanted to turn a quick buck with the down turn in the economy. They kicked out all of the month to month renters to make them into condos. Unfortunately for me, no one moves in December. This meant that I was stuck couch surfing for the month of Dec until I was able to get a place again in Jan.

This is where my biggest mistake lay.

I didn’t have a shortage of options. Looking back on it now? I probably had more options that I even realized then. I’ve talked to friends who have looked at me dumbfounded and wondered why I didn’t call on them. I think part of it was me just being stubborn.

M walked back into my life. She had gotten somewhat better. She was more like the person I remember in my mind’s eye. It blinded me. It made me feel like perhaps there was still a chance, still an opportunity. And, ever the optimist that thinks the best of people, I tried again.

The old resentments, the old anger, never really dies you know, it just slumbers. It waits for the time to rekindle itself. To catch on fire the soul of the person it breathes within everyday hoping for the opportunity to scream out that it’s right. It stews, it slumbers, it waits, and it hungers.
Slowly it consumed me. It took me by the hand and guided me through the steps, made me see the same things that had accumulated through the first time for so many years. Instead each time one of the old habits would crop up, I was aware, well aware of it and it gutted me. It tore me up and I would talk about it, how it made me feel, what I was worried about.

The week I was supposed to move out was the hardest. I was entrenched again in the same place I had been for years and as angry as it made me, it was comfortable, it was safe. Why should I crack my skull trying to start over when I could just fall into mediocrity and forget about it, forget about dreams, aspirations, hopes, desires and live a life amongst the unwashed and unknown, never blazing a trail for myself in this life or this World. Complacent in knowing that there was a warm body next to me, even if she wasn’t affectionate.

I debated because I feared. I feared because I had already gone all in with someone else and they hadn’t been able to cover my bet. I had shown all my cards and come up short of the winning hand. So what would make me think that the second time around would be better. What makes me think that it wouldn’t lead to a third try or fourth? How far was I willing to go? How often was I willing to bet all my chips?

I hemmed and hawed. It didn’t help that she wanted me to stay. It didn’t help that I wanted to stay. The strength that I had the first time I left wasn’t available. I had lost that yearning and burning because I was getting cowed again and I didn’t even see it.

If you ask me now what exactly it was that lead to my leaving, I still couldn’t tell you, that week was a complete blur. However I got out and was on my own. We tried to make it work. I know how much I gave to it. She has an idea as to what she put into it, I can’t speak for her. I’m not going to demonize the woman I once called wife but I will say that in my eyes the effort wasn’t enough and we ended up falling into our own ways.

This week I finally came to grips with the fact that the woman that I married that fine summer day was long gone and never to be seen again.

The second time, I think, was the hardest. It’s that finality that I know that there’s nothing else to do. There’s no where else to take this endeavor so with a heavy heart I’ve had to say it again. This time knowing that what I once called home is now nothing but an empty house.

Lich King Observations

So I’ve been silent for quiet some time. Much of that has to do with the fact that I’m currently homeless. To use a sad term, I’m hoofing it.

Long story short: I got notice eight days before eviction, turns out the company that I was renting from went bankrupt. So I had to pack everything up from my little hut and put it in storage. Little known fact: December is usually the month where people move the LEAST because of the holiday season, which means that finding a reasonably priced place to live is impossible. I did manage to line up a place, I move in at the end of the week.

So that being said I’ve been couch surfing as it were. I’ve been playing more WOW again and just spent the Christmas season alone and you know what I got for Christmas? A lump of coal. Yep, that’s right, zip, zero, nada, the big empty.

In any event let’s move on to WOW shall we?

There’s several observations that I want to point out. The first of which is this: Being a Shaman is fun again.

Now I will admit this, my Death Knight, named Luknight, is the highest toon I currently have sitting pretty at 76. After her there is Lubacca, my druid, who is sitting at 73 and Luciel, everyone’s favorite shaman is sitting at 70 (two bubbles away from 71).

Observation 1: This expansion is no where near as difficult as the last. If anything it’s almost easier than Vanilla WOW. It appears there was some QQ-ing over the difficulty of Burning Crusade and Blizzard took it to heart, leaving us with a "Kill this many things" quest in EVERY SINGLE AREA so far.

Observation 2: While there are two starting areas, they play like you have to do Tundra first and then Fjord because of the difficulty. At least with a regular toon.

Observation 3: The world is over populated with Death Knights but only a fraction know what they are doing in any event. Making it harder to weed people out is the fact that you have to go through so many. The same can be said for ANY class obviously but because of the hype, 11 million people have a Death Knight. Think about that for a second. Yea, that sucks.

Observation 4: As much fun as I’m having playing, it’s no where NEAR as engrossing as Burning Crusade was.

Observation 5: The instances are both easier and faster to run. The only exception to that for me right now is Old Kingdom, which also happens to be my favorite with a HUGE cavernous area for the instance it makes it interesting to see how much time they put into it. It also has some side quests that help with xp.

Observation 6: The gear doesn’t jump as fast as Burning Crusades did, instead giving an increase in all aspects of gear slowly but surely. Case in point, Luciel is still decked out in his epics from PVP and has yet to fully turn in his epic weapons. That’s even after having cleared the first starting area. I have to admit that I wasn’t expecting that but I’m not upset by it in the slightest.
Those are just the ones that I wanted to get out there at this moment. I will try and bring this back to what it was, a WOW blog about misadventures and more, thoughts on the several classes I’m currently playing.

Til next time!

The Return

News of my death…

… Has been highly overrated.

This is probably the most I’ve written in one week in a bit but this one isn’t a self reflecting blog.
Lick King came out last Thursday and DROVES of people went to buy it, I wasn’t one of them.

Not like with Burning Crusade where I was standing in line at midnight waiting for my copy. In this instance I really didn’t even know if I would ever play Warcraft again. Don’t get me wrong, I love the experience and as you can obviously see I’ve thrown plenty of time into the game, I just didn’t know if I’d have the resources and time to continue to play.

Divine Forsaken has been my home for the better part of almost two years now and I’ve made some very outstanding friends. One of them is Forester, or Don in RL.

When Don and I met, we were in Aerie Peak, the default server at the time. We were in the same guild together and for the life of me I can’t remember what it was called at the time. I met some awesome people and at one point some of the people I met, who were just trying out a new server and were going back ‘home’ invited me to come with them. I refused. At the time I thought that I would always be at Aerie Peak.

So Don and I were on the same guild and you have to understand that if I have something on a character and someone else needs it, I don’t think about gold, I think about how I can help someone. Don was new to the game (And honestly so was I, I think I had been playing two months at the time.), had an extra of some weapon and went onto guild chat to try and sell it to some other guild member.

At the time, and still, I held that ‘help others’ first motto and I blasted into him basically about how there’s honor in guild and you don’t sell to a guild member to make a profit, you help them. From that moment we were inseparable. We quested together a lot, we did some dungeons and started new characters together. Then one day I was just sick of Aerie Peak and the wait times and I moved to Nordassil. I’ve been on that server since. Yes I trekked the other servers and hung about but home has been Nord and Divine Forsaken.

I raised four of my 70s there. One was a transfer from Aerie (McGregor) but the rest, home ground from that soil. I’ve watch the server mature if not get more populated. I’ve watched friends come and go and when I left M and the house that she and I ambled about in, I thought that I was done with the game.

Then I get a text on Monday from Don. He’d already gotten the expansion and wanted to know when I was going to start playing and I told him that I may just not play with the expansion at all.

Then I heard nothing for a day.

Then he asked if it was available for download, the expansion, yet. I said it was.

He sent me that Serial number and a 60 day pass card number through a text. He didn’t ask for payment. He didn’t ask if I could give him something in return. He just sent that and then the following text, "See you in game bro! LOL"

People who don’t understand gaming like to make fun of World of Warcraft players and how they don’t have any friends in the real world so they create an account. The question is, how much more authentic a friend are you going to find here in ‘real life’.

I think many of you would understand my thought process, here is a person who I’ve never met in person or ever had a meal with and they went out of their way to get me a game and time to play it with. Might not seem like a big deal to the naked eye but think about it.

I just wanted to share that with you because I think that’s the kindest token I’ve received in a supremely long time and I’m feeling very blessed with the true friends that I have, even the ones I didn’t realize I had.

So be prepared to have a smattering of WoW again and the adventures I’m bound to have.