𝕮𝖆𝖓𝖙𝖆'𝖘 𝕰𝖕𝖍𝖊𝖒𝖊𝖗𝖆 | Comments welcome

[Cantarella]

I'm gonna tiptoe around getting too personal here, as those who care will ask and I'd prefer not to expose everyone who didn't sign up for it to my issues.

I'm not gonna lie. The past nearly four months have been Hell. Between my medical team consistently dropping the ball and leaving me in a constant state of crisis, to family problems, to financial difficulties, it's been a very difficult time. Some of you are aware of the depths of it, most of you have no idea other than I've had trouble writing in a consistent way.

And I'd like to apologize for that.

Each of you signed up for more consistency than I've given you, more focus than I've been able to allocate with as much anxiety I've had about the future. I can say with utmost certainty that I've been doing my best, and that I cherish every single story I have, each for different reasons. Every one of your has offered respite to a weary soul, and I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for it. I couldn't have maintained my sanity if not for all of you.

But, as we've been at rock bottom for so long, we've had nowhere to go but up. And up is where we appear to be headed after all this time. Hubby has finally found work, which is a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. I can work for my own reasons now. I have an appointment with someone who could change our lives for the better even still, in a little less than two months. While family is still a touchy subject, the wedding is rapidly approaching. We can finally plan in earnest with a lot of the financial burden taken off.

It's like I can take a breath after being underwater for so long. I know it's bad news to have so much hope after all this time when we're still in trouble in a lot of ways, but god, if I didn't need that lifeline. That one little spark that will keep me going for awhile longer.

Maybe, just maybe, things will be okay again. I just need to keep the faith.​

 

[Cantarella]

I've been playing a lot of tabletop RPGs while I've been on this semi-hiatus of mine, including now learning Pathfinder 2E.
For some background- Pathfinder 1E was my first foray into the world of tabletop RPGs. I first played all the way back in 2011, when I was all of nineteen years old. Practically an infant. I was encouraged to play by my then-boyfriend, who GMed for me and some of his friends, who were all veterans of TTRPGs in general, not just Pathfinder, and each a decade or more my senior.
We played a campaign called Curse of the Crimson Throne. And he and I broke up, rather explosively, before I ever got the opportunity to finish it.
I spent many hours in those halcyon days of my youth immersing myself into the world of Golarion- information almost entirely forgotten now that I'm in my thirties, and having spent many years thinking I'd never return to that mythical place, let alone to Korvosa to revisit the campaign I was dropped from.
My husband decided after saying for over a year he has no interest in Pathfinder (not that I blame him- 1E is very clunky and not the most beginner-friendly) that he would like to GM it, his decision solidified after a playtest.
On account of scheduling issues with several of our regular players, he decided he wanted to have two of the adventure paths running concurrently, adapted for 2E... and what did he pick, but Curse of the Crimson Throne?
Which got me to thinking:
Life really is a cyclical thing.
Eleven years ago, I was a frightened girl at a table full of people much older than myself, unsure of myself, unsure of my skills, too scared to roleplay even though I had done it through message boards for a decade by then, being urged by a man I was sure I would marry and have a family with to relax and let it flow. And here I am, now thirty years old, married to my GM, expecting his son in December, hopefully finally getting the closure I so craved in the immediate fallout of the breakup.
To say things are idyllic despite my continued inability to write would be an understatement.​

 

[Cantarella]

Been awhile, BMR. I would apologize for that, but as a partner of mine said, I should never have to apologize for Real Life, as it takes priority over writing every time.

So, we moved! Yay, right? Wrong. The home we waited two months for and were told was complete in terms of renovations... was not complete, far from it in fact. It hadn't even been cleaned, and there's still broken, rotted wood everywhere, uneven flooring, stained carpeting when we were told it was new, holes in the walls, nails, screws, tacks, and staples sticking up everywhere... Oh, and we have mice! Fun! In short, it's a deathtrap for my baby, as it can't be babyproofed the way I'd like it to be. I appealed to the maintenance people (the same people who did this shoddy job in the first place) on behalf of my child, and they will be continuing to renovate it as we live here. A pain in the ass, for sure, but it's better than the lackluster response we got at first.

So I've been attempting to clean the house and unpack while juggling my duties as a wife and mother and it's very difficult to do. Hubby's pulling some OT so we can afford a cleaner to come over and deep clean the areas I haven't been able to get to and don't have the time to work on.

That's just the first layer to the shit cake, unfortunately. Aside from the fact that we need to take our car to the shop (again) I'm not able to talk about the rest of it without fear of judgement or, well, the fact that it's potentially TMI.

Anyway, I've obviously been unable to do posts right now as I've been busy and distracted. I will get back to you all individually when I can, but right now's not the time. Thank you for your patience.

 

[Cantarella]

Been awhile since I had the time to sit down and verbally vomit in this space, BMR. But tonight I'm feeling pensive and I have the time now, so why not?

I've been thinking about times gone by lately, spurred on by going back to a place that used to be the life of the party. I got my start seriously RPing on a site that used to be incredibly popular with teenagers back in the '00s and into the '10s, and I decided on a whim to go back and take a look at it, see if anyone's still around, and a thread I used to frequent when I was all of 14 years old or so had activity in it. That, and I threw my hat in to test the waters in another thread full of former friends who unceremoniously ghosted me around the time my grandmother died.

It got me to thinking about those old faces, about where everyone's gone. I've since become a wife and mother, married to someone I met on that site when I was 16, and I'd wager some of those old users are in the same boat, in one way or another. I wish there was a way to reach some of those people, but I'm being ghosted by one group and ignored by an old, close friend altogether.

Perhaps it's better if I took the hint, dropped it all, left it all and let go, but nostalgia is a hell of a drug.

 

[Cantarella]

Hello again, BMR. I've been mostly AWOL since late October, aside from lurking here and there when I've had the time and energy to come 'round. And there's good reason for that, I promise. I haven't willfully ghosted anyone; I've merely had a very full plate and a very small stomach.

It all started when we moved in early October. Not a major move, mind you, it was to another unit directly across the dirt road we live on. We attempted to take our ISP with us, but they notified us we'd need to wait 4-6 weeks for them to come wire this unit to receive their services. Now, we absolutely could have gone with another provider, but this one is by far the most affordable in our neck of the woods, and it was really a no-brainer.

So we waited.

In the interim, we used a mobile hotspot to get wi-fi, but between voice calls for our several weekly DnD and CoC games, and watching shows and hubby's downloads, that data went quickly.

We also went traveling rather suddenly around the first of November, and were away for almost two weeks. I did bring my laptop with me while we were traveling, but I don't think I opened it up a single time while I was away. We ended up traveling from Sacramento, down to the Bay area, and to the Monterey bay, and then finally to Phoenix, Arizona. With a baby in tow, no less. It was exhausting, but I had a wonderful time and saw family I hadn't seen in years. We also decided while we were there that we would need to move closer if we wanted to maintain a relationship with these family members. So, we'll be moving again probably in the middle of next year. A big, bold cross-country move.

Here's a picture I took outside the Monterey Bay Aquarium.




When we got home, our ISP was hooked up. Yay! Unfortunately, a health issue I developed during the summer had started acting up while we were away and continued to be debilitating once I returned home. So between keeping house and minding my baby, who will be turning 1 in a week, and feeling terrible, I stopped prioritizing returning to RP. What time I had to myself was spent on self-care.

Needless to say, I've been on a bit of an unannounced hiatus, and I do apologize for not saying anything, but I've been ill enough that now my doctor wants to run scans to see if there's something there that shouldn't be. I'm currently waiting on the hospital to call me to set up these scans. It's not on an emergent basis, so it could take awhile. The good news is that my doctor put me on medication to try to help mitigate the symptoms, and it's helped a good deal. I'm hoping that means I'll be up to playing soon.

 

[Cantarella]

Been a minute since I've posted here. Not for a lack of things to say, but for a lack of the words needed to express it.

I guess I'll start with the fact that we're still here, and the move I was so excited for last year never happened. It was a blow, I'm not going to lie, but it came on the tail of my husband's inability to find work in the community we live in. Although I came into money, we could not escape, and for a time, I despaired. It felt like we were doomed to stay in a place that could not support the life we wanted.

But then, just as the money ran out, my husband made a sort of hail Mary, and attempted again to enlist in the military. It took a while, and I had to return to work for a little while to support the family, but he finally cleared MEPS, and as of September 24th, he shipped out to Army Basic Training.

So, for now, I am the sole parent of a toddler, in college full-time, and holding down the fort while he's away. For obvious reasons, writing is difficult to find time for right now. I don't get to play DnD as much as I'm accustomed to, either, as my primary DM was my husband, and the loss of that has hurt as well. Creatively speaking, I'm very stifled and pent up, and when I do get to do a little writing, it feels great. Any little bit of plotting, any morsel of worldbuilding or work for my remaining campaigns, and I'm a happy camper, even if it does take me awhile to get back to thinking about that.