Where We Go When We Go Nowhere

We’ve landed on a planet that’s completely engulfed in flame, and that’s a good thing. My more experienced space-adventurer friend, Luke, explains that this planet’s superheated fire storms make for perfect storm crystal hunting conditions. Those crystals sell for a lot of units at trading hubs, and I’ve had my eye on several ships to replace my starter vessel.

We wait for an alert to flash across our windshields: “WARNING. Wall of Flame Detected.” Then we take off into the ashy sky in our individual ships, our hulls creaking from the extreme heat of the atmosphere.

Even with our durable exosuits, we can’t last long outside of our ships during these storms. Once we spot the white, glowing crystals on the ground below, we land as close as we can, hop out, and jog through the thick, heat-wobbled air to collect our prizes as quickly as possible.

After the storm passes, we return to one of the few trading posts on this hell-world to exchange our treasures for universal currency. The landscape around the post is charred and unlivable, but on this little platform, members of the local sapient species bumble around, doing their own thing.

Here on planet Novil, that primary species is the Gek. I like the Gek. They’re short and reptilian and kinda cute, for being a bunch of arrogant plutocrats. I like them so much that I’m disguised as one of them. I look like a little yellow lizard in a green jumpsuit.

It me! The lizard of your dreams!

Luke, on the other hand, resembles neither the Gek nor the other two primary races in the galaxy. He’s taller than me and has a broad face with dish-like eye sockets and a crown of branching, antler-like appendages. He’s oddly pretty for being an alien mashup of the Forest Spirit from Princess Mononoke and a Furby. Technically, his disguise is more accurate to what we “really” are.

We are both “Travelers,” mysterious beings trying to piece together our own history, and that of the universe. A daunting task, but that’s just how this game goes. No Man’s Sky is massive in both content and concept. It’s a space exploration game with over 18 quintillion procedurally-generated planets to discover.

Just how big is that number? Large enough that it would take you almost 585 billion years to see each planet. So, large enough to be essentially infinite, and definitely large enough to occasionally swamp me with existential dread.

But I can handle a little dread, because I’m playing the game with my friends.

This is part of how I’ve been staying connected with people during the Year of Isolation. Usually, I hate phone calls. I feel uncomfortable and antsy even when chatting with my most beloved friends. I can’t focus on the conversation, and have trouble processing their words, no matter how clear the call is.

But for some reason, when I’m also zipping around in space, shooting asteroids to collect their precious resources, I can chat on a call for hours. Do I still get distracted and lose what I was saying? Oh yeah, definitely. But I get less anxious when that happens. It feels much more like a “normal” conversation with my loved ones. Like we’re all together, just hanging out. And also running from angry robots that want to laser us to death.

As we descend into what promises to be an even more isolating than usual winter, I’m increasingly aware of how vital it will be to keep this little ritual going. I’ve already chucked so many other rituals out the window. I lack the energy and focus for even my favorite activities, like writing. This was a rare November in which I didn’t attempt to reach 50,000 words for National Novel Writing Month, despite my love of the challenge. It was just too much pressure on my exhausted brain.

But video games? No pressure, just digital nincompoopery with my friends? That I can handle. Plus, I need that nincompoopery right now. So much is happening, and I’m overwhelmed and brimming with dread. This year has been so tightly packed with tragedy that it’s hard to hold a conversation that doesn’t circle back to the horror stew in which we all simmer.

So, having a conversation with my buddy Ryan about how the water mechanics work in Minecraft as he, Luke, Alé, and I burrow through cubes of stone in search of diamonds is a massive relief. For a few minutes, I can set aside the brain-scrambling anxiety and focus on karate-chopping giant spiders with my unicorn-themed avatar.

That’s not to say that we don’t hold serious conversations during our play sessions, though. We still chat about the heaviness of this year, and update each other on how our days went, and how we’re feeling. That question, that friendly “how are you doing?”, is sometimes very difficult to answer. In truth, even though I’ve been relatively fortunate this year and have worked hard on taking care of myself, I’m still struggling. Mental quirks that have previously been manageable are becoming disruptive in my work life and at home.

And so it was during one of those play sessions, as my space-lizard persona drifted through the void in their little red shuttle, that I decided to schedule my first voluntary, individual appointment with a therapist.

I’ve been wary of therapy for a variety of reasons. I’ve felt unworthy of it, or like I shouldn’t even bother unless I’m on the brink of a crisis, or that I’m “not allowed” to seek treatment unless I’ve completely exhausted all of my existing coping skills (how am I even supposed to measure that?). I’ve also had some poor therapist matches as a young person, and then as an adult during my bid to save a marriage that didn’t want to be saved. I feared I wasn’t emotionally ready to handle the potential discomfort or outright rejection that could come from a not-quite-right counseling relationship.

This year, the stakes are too high for those excuses. Even with video game playdates with my friends, and occasional, cautious meet-ups, it’s going to be an extra lonely season. When I have nowhere to go, I go inward, and that can be a dangerous and disorienting journey. You see, I start that journey with the intention of knowing myself more fully, so that I may better myself as a person. What tends to happen, however, is that I self-reflect to the point of bullying myself.

It’s a big, overwhelming universe out there. Now is not the time to rip apart the only vessel I have for exploring that universe.

Which is why I’m enlisting outside help.

If you’re feeling lonely and overwhelmed in your own metaphorical spaceship, I encourage you to do the same. Reach out, whether to professionals or to friends. Find new ways to connect to your loved ones. Don’t succumb to the feeling of stagnation. As lonely as you may feel, you aren’t alone. There’s a host of other travelers feeling much the same at the moment.

We can only do our best to make it through. In the meantime, I highly recommend the joys of building blocky Minecraft kingdoms with your friends. I promise it’s much more pleasant than staring at the wall and spiraling into an Extra Large Depression Pit. And if you find yourself spiraling anyway, here’s a link to a place that can help you match up with a therapist.

Good luck, everyone. Be safe, and much love!

The End of the Hot Winter

Oh.

Oh my.

It’s been months, hasn’t it? That’s what the little calendar in the corner of my screen says, anyway.

I hesitate to joke about the passage of time, because it’s all been joked about before. How time has broken through its dam and rushed by in an awful, un-swimmable torrent, and yet has also stayed absolutely still. For a while, it felt like the winter was just being extended: a little more indoors alone time while the weather gradually warmed. But then winter continued… No events to serve as waypoints, no sunny gatherings of friends and strangers, no 5Ks or concerts or festivals. The days were hot and bright and empty.

This morning, I stood on my back step while the dogs did their business and watched the steam of my breath rise toward the yellowing leaves of the walnut trees that tower over my house, and I realized with more horror than usual that the cold days are returning.

Hot winter is over, and I dread the arrival of true winter.

Normally, this is the part of my blog entry where I say more silly stuff about my struggles, and then flip my anxieties into sappy optimism. But this time, that feels dirty. In the face of profound injustice and worldwide suffering, what can I even say? “We’ll get through this! Spirits up! Be kind!” But you’ve heard that all before, and in the midst of such pain, those platitudes feel hollow and insulting.

This has been a summer of immense loss. I have been fortunate. I have lived, and my family has lived. Over a million people around the world have not, and I know personally of one such loss and its devastating impact on my most cherished friends. Again: what do I say to that? What do I do except scrounge up frail phrases of comfort, and show up when I can?

I lie awake in bed thinking about that death, because the scale of it doesn’t fit in my brain. I can’t hold the horror of it all at once. My heart - practiced at shattering and reforming - is a whirling assembly of broken glass, never able to fully reshape between blows, and I’ve been lucky. It’s my loved ones who are suffering the most, one catastrophe after another, all within a series of global catastrophes. If I can barely conceptualize all of these atrocities, how could I possibly comprehend the vastness of their agony?

And then I think of my other friends, and of the strange new patterns their lives have taken on. I get to sit behind a desk in a small, minimally-trafficked office all day while another dear friend works two public-facing jobs. Not only is she more exposed to Covid risk factors, but she has to act as an enforcer of the new rules of public interaction. The daily onslaught of ignorance she must endure boils my blood, and yet again… What do I say?

There are also the friends who are now working indefinitely from home, a combined blessing and curse. I have not had to contend with that special kind of loneliness so far, or at least, not to the same degree.

There’s another friend who comes to mind as well, someone I met and became close with while indulging in my “let’s write stories about aliens” coping mechanism over the summer. They’re an aspiring marine biologist whose plans to move out of an unsafe home environment and enroll in relevant programs are on hold while the economy wobbles and the pandemic rages.

How do you plan for the future when the only consistent feature of the present has been inconsistency?

I don’t have an answer for that. I don’t have that uplifting twist that I usually do in my blog entries. All I really have is this suggestion: Focus on your survival, and be as kind as you can. Kind to yourself, and kind to others. This moment is not forever, despite how it may feel. Now is a time for gentleness and endurance.

If you have the means, maybe you can offer kindness in the form of donations to these folks:

• Charities promoting black health, education, rights, and community development

• Nonprofits providing relief and recovery to communities affected by the pandemic

• The ACLU (particularly important in the face of voter suppression)

I want so badly to end this entry with sparkles and rainbows, but that still doesn’t feel right. Not against the backdrop of all this horror. I don’t want to downplay the terrible weight of this year, and all the pain that’s come with it. But I do want to offer a little sliver of hope.

I’m still here. And if you’re reading this, then you’re still here too. And there are still bright days, and bonfires, and yellow leaves. There are families walking their dogs and waving from the other side of the street. There are trips to the woods and picnics to be packed. There are warm blankets and purring cats. There are people raising their voices in opposition of evil.

If all you can do right now is survive, that’s more than enough. I’ll be doing my best to survive right along with you.