So here we are, almost a week after release, and so far the experience has been while somewhat stressful at times—mostly due to my own doing and ambition—something of a relief.

I’ve written before, of some of the anxiety I had going into it all, and so far my fears have been mostly unfounded though the real trial will of course be with the release of the raid—still in the honeymoon-phase. Yet the significantly reduced expectations following on from Battle for Azeroth have been a real blessing, and while this does lead to me perhaps logging in less than I did in the early days of that expansion, the time that I am spending playing is more meaningful to me and consequently more enjoyable.

Now, I admit, part of this enjoyment is probably also me having almost completely dodged the Maw so far, and the little I’ve done in there I still did not like, but the experience has still overall been very positive—if at times still somewhat frustrating due to the low amount of haste everyone has but it’s early days of the expansion and that always happens.

This does also mean I am looking forward to my future in this expansion that much more, since it has such a much more promising beginning than the last one meaning I can more easily see myself enjoying it all in the long run as well.

Now to get back to some leveling and dungeoning…

Last week, a couple of days ago to be more precise, we had our first snow of the year here. Now it wasn’t a lot, and is quickly melting since the temperature is still above 0°, but what a difference it makes, how much lighter the whole worlds seems in these dark times of the year with simply some white snow on the ground.

It’s one of those strange things, that you know and expect yet kind of have to marvell at every time, the difference it makes.

The less fun part—for me at least—is that this means that we are slowly transitioning from autumn to winter, which means that my daily walks will get a bit colder, especially noticeable since the past autumn has actually been rather warm. Now, predicting the weather for long stretches of time is always hard and I haven’t even looked at the short-term forecasts, so maybe this was just a blip and it gets warmer again, but still, it’s a reminder that winter is (probably) around the corner.

I do hope for warm-ish winter, still under 0° so that we get to keep the snow, but not by much so I don’t have to freeze too much when going outside.

Having spent some time with my mother in the recent days, along with my usual gaming in the evenings, has given me renewed insight into my own, I suppose introversion is the right word.

Now, it’s something I have been aware of about myself for a long time already, never being one that is at home at parties or larger gatherings, but what it has put into the spotlight is merely a rather significant need to have time that is simply mine, that I don’t necessarily spend with anyone else or if I do it’s more a case of being “alone together” where we are each doing our own thing.

This has recently, even though I am doing things I enjoy with people I enjoy, manifested itself as a form of stress and tiredness, to which the answer of course is simple: spend some time alone doing things for yourself, like writing. What then complicates matters, is not only the hours available in a day—I have been doing the things I have been doing since I want to spend time with people that are important to me—but also to a certain degree a feeling of guilt or perhaps even duty to spend the time with those people.

Taking a guess, this feeling stems from wanting to please others and making sure they are having a good time, and putting those needs before my own. Now, there have certainly been times and situations where I have managed my own needs better than I am at the moment, but that tinge of guilt of not participating has still always been there, the feeling of not belonging or not being wanted.

Reconciling these two extremes, on one hand needing time alone doing my own thing and on the other feeling guilty or left out when I am doing exactly that and others are doing their thing is something it seems I still have to work on, but for the moment the need for alone time is winning out.

So a while back, we got the (new) release date for Shadowlands, 24.11.2020.

My feelings toward this are rather mixed, one the one hand, it means we get to play new content and hopefully properly explore the new zones, something I’ve put off doing on the beta for the release. On the other hand, though I’m hopeful that Blizzard will figure everything out in time for release, it all feels somewhat unfinished in the state it is in during my last testing.

Beyond that, the release date along with the two week delay until the raid opens and one week delay until mythic becomes available, means we will once more have progress over the holidays which is never really a nice thing. I mean, there’ll probably be less going on anyway what with the pandemic going on, but still, having that sort of split attention is never all that nice—much prefer simply being able to take a break from raiding during that time rather than having it lurking in the background.

At this very moment though, I think my elation is winning over my pessimism, since I am actually rather looking forward to playing more World of Warcraft, especially with how good the opportunities to play several characters look in the expansion. Now, sure, I can do that during the prepatch, but there just isn’t a lot of content to pursue that feels in any way shape or form meaningful at the moment—the raid is on farm since months at this point, gear is about to become completely obsolete, and the whole transmog and mount farming thing wasn’t really my, well, thing to any great extent. Sure, getting some specific transmogs can be nice at times, but I rarely feel any particular need to simply catch them all as it were.

To be fair, we are even doing that to a degree, with a somewhat long-running at this point weekly Molten Core run, trying to get Thunderfury. But it’s not exactly the kind of content that provides a lot of engagement with a character nor does it take a significant amount of time, so it’s not really the experience I’m looking for in the game most of the time.

At any rate, there is that old saying of learning to accept the things one cannot change, and my actions at this point in time have rather little influence on the outcome of the release so all I can do is wait and see, making any sort of premature worrying and overthinking of the whole thing rather pointless. I’ll just have to end up showing up for the launch—which I’m hoping goes smoothly once more—level a bit, have some fun with friends, and take my time enjoying the start of the expansion, since it’s looking like that too is an option this time around. In the meantime, my energy is better spent making sure the time up until that point is spent enjoyably in good company.

So, lately, I’ve noticed a certain trend in myself of being rather anxious, or perhaps stressed. I worry about the things I need to do, I feel like I get almost nothing done, and I feel like I have this recurring problem with my scalp getting itchy where I’m not quite sure if it actually gets itchy or I’m so anxious about it happening that I focus on it and start noticing the itchiness and then it all snowballs from there.

Now that last one, to be fair, is probably combination of factors and my scalp actually being really dry and itchy is definitely also a contributing factor, but it feels like the anxiety might also be contributing to how they are manifesting and making themselves noticed.

As for the worrying, well, it feels like it’s partially down to trying to create some new healthy routines—and routine in general—and the stress associated with making sure not only that I do those things but also the perceived time they take, along with the effort of actually going through with it.

These routines still feel like a gain in the long run but it seems that building them up is taking something of a bigger toll than I had anticipated at the start, especially since they are daily things and as such I never really get respite and a chance to recouperate from trying to adapt and adopt these new changes. Luckily it isn’t something I’m undertaking alone which makes it all doable, but we both have our own challenges in actually achieving this goal.

Now, I guess, comes the hard part, after having identified the problem and its potential causes, trying to figure out a way to solve it and actually move past this all. That part I am unfortunately still working on, might be that merely time will solve it for me once the new routines actually become routine and not something I have to really think about, or maybe there are greater unknowns still somewhere lurking that I need to solve in order for this to be over.

Still, I suppose this chronichling of those challenges is a step in the right direction, helping me in my thought process by making it all a bit easier to analyse and take in. I do hope I find a solution soon, this itchiness is really starting to get annyoing, worst part is it was away for a bit and then came back again…