Reboot: 40

This is a blog post. It’s me vexing out in the open — something I used to do quite regularly, in various places online. It’s something I’ve fallen out of the habit of doing over the years. Part of it was in an attempt to focus on “my brand” — getting published meant, surely, folks weren’t interested in hearing me whine. I don’t know if that’s true of my audience or not; I just know that separating any part of me from the rest leaves me divided and depressed. It turns me into someone who spends too much time over-analyzing what he should be writing versus…well, writing anything at all.

That ends with this post. Don’t worry, nerds, this is still a site focused on my gaming hobby and geeky scribblings because that’s just who I am, and what I do. But the theme of this year, the fortieth one of my existence, has been about breaking stagnation. It’s not just about moving forward but moving on… not just finishing a chapter but closing a whole damn book and putting ink on the first page of a new one.

I write these words in a new office, in a new home, in a new city. This summer has been a flash of change that burned like a spark hitting gunpowder. The past few years have been a holding pattern of sorts — there was parenthood, there was COVID, my father’s passing and then the aftermath of it all. Then suddenly, everything fell into place like a dam bursting. We sold dad’s land, we bought a house, and I moved away from the only town I’ve lived in my whole life, all within a couple of months.

The kid is about to start public school. My wife has already been kicking ass in online classes. We’ve been reconnecting with friends who moved to the city long ago. We’ve also been discovering new places, new opportunities and new connections. During my 30s, I embraced the curmudgeonly attitude of “the Grumpus” who never left his cave. Now I’m meeting up with strangers to geek out about big stompy robots, wizards and whatnot.

In some ways it doesn’t feel real yet; like at some point we’re going to have to wrap things up and say “OK, time to go!” and leave our fantasy vacation to return to our real home. But… that’s not going to happen. We turned in the keys to our last house; we paid professionals to tear down my first house. Time is a fickle construct — the point in my life where I was a “couch dweller” was half my life ago, and yet I remember it like last week. My dad passed two years ago, and it feels like an eternity since. The past month spent moving has aged me about 5 years, but has somehow given my 16-year-old cat a youthful spring.

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I’m sitting here, reeling about how to wrap this post up, like it needs a profound ending to drive home a point.
That is the point — it’s not the ending. I’m just getting started here. Until next time.

“With this line I mark the past as a symbol of beginning,
I have no doubt from what I’ve seen,
I have never wanted more”

• VNV Nation, “Solitary”