Some of you may have noticed there was no Experience Points column last week for the first time since last November. Hopefully its absence was felt like a giant vacuum in your week. How you survived the last week without it is the great mystery of our time. I'm back; you can relax.
I wish I could say it just slipped my mind, but I'm afraid that greater, sadder forces were at work. Our family had to make the painful decision to put down our beloved family dog, Onyx, after having her for 14 wonderful years. That sucked just about exactly as much as you think it did.
It's not like this was entirely unexpected. Dogs don't live a whole lot longer than that; we knew it was coming. I'm happy to say it was really only in the last month we saw her decline to the point where this was the right thing to do. She lived not only long but relatively healthy until the very end. I'm not sure any of us can ask for a lot more.
It was a rough decision but it truly went as well as could be hoped. The only treatment options available were ones from which she was unlikely to recover. My wife and I were in total agreement about what needed to happen. So there was no disagreement or worry about whether we should have done more.
Even with all those factors being as good as one could hope for in such a bad situation, I was completely gutted by it. I'm a very emotionally stable guy. I'm a very emotionally resilient guy (I'm writing this a week later after all). But it was still one hell of a rough week. I was surprised by some of the effects it had on me.
I'm very much a people person. There is little I enjoy more than talking to my friends and clients. But last week I didn't want to talk to anybody. My throat was tight and sore and my emotions were bruised and battered. I stayed close to home, ate very little, distracted myself as best I could. I needed a Cure Serious Wounds.
One of the ways I distracted myself was playing this cute little computer game I picked up called Don't Starve. It's a game world full of Tim Burtonesque 2d artwork full of things that are almost cute right up until they are terrifying and try to drive you insane and kill you. Here too I saw, when my Health and Sanity were low, I stuck pretty close to home. Kept the fire going. Looked for anything I could turn into medicine. I needed to recover.
It reminded me of some tense moments in our RPG's over the years. The times when hit points were low and we were still deep in the dungeon or wilderness. When you were huddled around the fire (or afraid to make a fire because it might attract something with teeth), hoping the night would end soon. Hoping that one more bad thing wouldn't happen. You might not survive one more bad thing.
It's a lot better when you have a place you can feel safe. It's better if you have people you trust around you. People who love you. You can lick your wounds and rest. Scrounge together a few potions or healing spells. Recover. Then you start to feel like a hero again and can get back out there adventuring.
I'm happy to say that my week of recovery allowed me to do just that. I dealt with the pain and loss. I managed to start feeling like myself again. On Friday we drove to the US National Whitewater Center and did a bunch of fun, adventuresome stuff. Zip lines, leaping off a 45 foot tower, rock climbing, a ropes course. Really cool stuff. Then we got up the next morning and did the Warrior Dash, which was also relatively close to the most adventure you can get these days without going some really remote places. I felt great doing all of that stuff. I was able to celebrate my birthday on Sunday without feeling sore and destroyed.
I had managed to recover.
I think when you feel that kind of beat up and abused by the world, when you've literally lost one of your best friends, taking the time to recover is important. Remembering that you've managed to recover before is important. That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
Has something laid you low lately? How did you recover? What did you accomplish when you came back from it?
I wish I could say it just slipped my mind, but I'm afraid that greater, sadder forces were at work. Our family had to make the painful decision to put down our beloved family dog, Onyx, after having her for 14 wonderful years. That sucked just about exactly as much as you think it did.
It's not like this was entirely unexpected. Dogs don't live a whole lot longer than that; we knew it was coming. I'm happy to say it was really only in the last month we saw her decline to the point where this was the right thing to do. She lived not only long but relatively healthy until the very end. I'm not sure any of us can ask for a lot more.
It was a rough decision but it truly went as well as could be hoped. The only treatment options available were ones from which she was unlikely to recover. My wife and I were in total agreement about what needed to happen. So there was no disagreement or worry about whether we should have done more.
Even with all those factors being as good as one could hope for in such a bad situation, I was completely gutted by it. I'm a very emotionally stable guy. I'm a very emotionally resilient guy (I'm writing this a week later after all). But it was still one hell of a rough week. I was surprised by some of the effects it had on me.
I'm very much a people person. There is little I enjoy more than talking to my friends and clients. But last week I didn't want to talk to anybody. My throat was tight and sore and my emotions were bruised and battered. I stayed close to home, ate very little, distracted myself as best I could. I needed a Cure Serious Wounds.
One of the ways I distracted myself was playing this cute little computer game I picked up called Don't Starve. It's a game world full of Tim Burtonesque 2d artwork full of things that are almost cute right up until they are terrifying and try to drive you insane and kill you. Here too I saw, when my Health and Sanity were low, I stuck pretty close to home. Kept the fire going. Looked for anything I could turn into medicine. I needed to recover.
It reminded me of some tense moments in our RPG's over the years. The times when hit points were low and we were still deep in the dungeon or wilderness. When you were huddled around the fire (or afraid to make a fire because it might attract something with teeth), hoping the night would end soon. Hoping that one more bad thing wouldn't happen. You might not survive one more bad thing.
It's a lot better when you have a place you can feel safe. It's better if you have people you trust around you. People who love you. You can lick your wounds and rest. Scrounge together a few potions or healing spells. Recover. Then you start to feel like a hero again and can get back out there adventuring.
I'm happy to say that my week of recovery allowed me to do just that. I dealt with the pain and loss. I managed to start feeling like myself again. On Friday we drove to the US National Whitewater Center and did a bunch of fun, adventuresome stuff. Zip lines, leaping off a 45 foot tower, rock climbing, a ropes course. Really cool stuff. Then we got up the next morning and did the Warrior Dash, which was also relatively close to the most adventure you can get these days without going some really remote places. I felt great doing all of that stuff. I was able to celebrate my birthday on Sunday without feeling sore and destroyed.
I had managed to recover.
I think when you feel that kind of beat up and abused by the world, when you've literally lost one of your best friends, taking the time to recover is important. Remembering that you've managed to recover before is important. That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
Has something laid you low lately? How did you recover? What did you accomplish when you came back from it?
I hope the rest of your family finds peace with it.
