Sunday morning

Ouch...my SHINS STILL HURT. I was out hiking for two hours yesterday. It felt WONDERFUL. I breathed in and out - and I breathed in and out A LOT on the tough hills...Ha Ha Ha. Anyway, I took the (dirt) road less traveled and hiked up and into the Dry Creek Cemetery area. I was walking through the cemetery and I found the most incredible thing. I spontaneously started to cry - and I took a picture with my blackberry...



I felt it was so meaningful. The entire hike up I thought about SL and about the people I have met there over the past 17 months. I thought about the wrongs and the rights - the good AND the bad. I hummed and even sang along with my iPod at times as I was walking. I would turn around from time to time and look back down towards my house and the city spreading off to the left. I realized while looking back can be a beautiful thing, when you're walking forwards - especially when you have the tough hills to climb, you have to look AHEAD of you.

It sounds so simple, but it's very true. I took a picture in the cemetery - me: completely waterlogged, sweaty, worn out - but very, very content.



After returning home and having the HOTTEST SHOWER EVER...I relaxed and enjoyed a few more quiet hours of just vegging out on the couch. As often as I have said it before, having two lives can be so extremely stressful. Having ONE life - even a busy and fulfilling life - can be COMPLETELY relaxing after living like I have for as long as I have.

After a great movie on the TV, some time with E. and J. at home, a trip to the mall which involved a delicious Orange Julius break and then a surprise dinner out, I was ready to crawl to the nearest pillow and pass out. WHICH is exactly what I did. :)

I awoke early this morning - with SL on my mind. The point of everything was making it to today without logging in. I tried to sleep, but I couldn't - which only made me mad. LOL. But not mad-angry - mad-annoyed. I jumped up and headed into the kitchen to make a loaf of fresh bread. I have been delving back into the cooking, you know. So I started by grabbing my well-worn recipe for Portuguese Sweet Bread and started throwing all the ingredients into the bread machine. I made it all the way to the flour - the VERY last ingredient - before I realized - OMG...I have no YEAST. HOW COULD I FORGET YEAST?! Well, off I trudged to the grocery store in my track pants and long-sleeve shirt and hair slightly combed (ha!) and eyes still sleepy TO BUY YEAST. I was a bit ashamed and felt kind of mad at myself again for letting my life get to this point. Back in the day, I always had yeast. I could plan a meal on a moments notice and have everything I needed in cabinets and the pantry. These days, not so much. It was a(nother) wake up call for me as I realized that I was so far separated from something I used to pride myself on.

While at the store, I grabbed a big head of cauliflower too - I love that stuff. The same magazine that talked about the soup yesterday also talked about roasted cauliflower so I have a plan for that stuff later. :)

When I got home, I added the yeast to the bread machine and even as I type this, I can smell the bread baking. I don't eat bread often these days - I quit eating bread often about 10 months ago - but E. and J. love it - and I might have a little bit. :)

I have already logged into SL this morning. I did it early so I wouldn't run into a lot of people online. I just knew if I was there to do anything other than read notecards and click notices, I would want to stay...or might be tempted to stay. I logged in and the barrage of notes and wonderful comments from friends were there to greet me. What a nice greeting. So many of them included personal contact information (which I will be putting to good use) for people outside SL. And the few that didn't, I made sure to give mine to them.

Two notecards in particular meant so much to me. A dear friend from early on in SL sent me a note that made me smile and have tears at the same time about his own experiences right now. I immediately said a prayer and sent a hug. Another notecard from a very recent NEW friend and it made my eyes wet too. Everything she said meant so much to me. I feel blessed to have people who care - and who are reading my blog - and getting so much out of it. I don't WANT to drag people out of SL with me - that's not my goal. BUT, for those who are also suffering - those who are also hurting - my goodness...if I can help with what I share in ANY way - I will. A true friend is someone who is there in good times and bad, someone who will not forsake you - even when the chips are down and when times are tough. A true friend will not ask you to choose between them and others. A true friend respects you, loves you and challenges you to be the best "you" that you can be. I need as many true friends as I can get in this life - REAL life - and I value the true friendships that I am taking with me from that world into this one. I love being a true friend - it's really all I looked for in SL.

So I spent about 30-40 minutes responding to notes in-world and then took care of a couple of other things related to the Gallery and logged off - easy-peasy. Quick and painless. NOW, I have logged on - and I don't really feel like going back today. I made it 6 days and WOW...it was so much easier than I thought - and I feel so much better than I expected. Just positive and thankful and excited about cleaning the house (HAHAHAHAH!) and looking forward to seeing what the path that I will continue to walk in my life has in store for me. I know there will be times that I look back - like I did yesterday - but I will also be looking forward. Forward with a smile on my face and a song at my lips and a soaring heart. Because life is never as bad as it seems. And love is always there - if you look for it. Bad things and heartache are always there too - just turn on the news to see it...but you know, I so prefer choosing the good.

This song seems fitting for today. And, for every day really. Forgive me the fact that it's being sung by a teenager...sometimes the youth have a lot to teach the rest of us.

The words to this song are so meaningful to me. There IS always going to be another mountain - and sometimes I will lose my way in the process of the climb. Sometimes I will climb it and it will be the greatest feeling when I get to the top and see how far I came.



Here's to looking down from the top...and realizing that mistakes aren't mistakes. They are just lessons.

Focusing

This morning it's SOOOO darn early and I have been online now for a little over an hour. No real HUGE temptation to log into SL, although it has been in the back of my mind a little. J. and E. have left the house and it's just me and Berg the dog. So I am completely unsupervised. ;) Actually, it happens SO rarely and I have had coffee, juice, a little toast...and I am thinking that it's probably time for me to head out to hike a little. I live right next to the foothills that lead into the mountains and it's just so seldom that there's nothing keeping me from grabbing my iPod and just going out and walking or hiking up into them. So I think I will be dragging myself out in a couple of minutes - rain or shine. :)

E. is at a huge chess tournament today. I just distract her when I go. She comes back and forth to me and wants sympathy or cheering - depending how her games go. J. is much better at that then me. I want to protect her always and he's a bit more matter-of-fact about the entire thing.

I read a friend's status on Facebook this morning and I just had to share it on here.

"Life is too short to wake up with regrets. ♥ So love the people who treat you right. ♥ Forget about the ones who don't. Believe everything happens for a reason. If you get a second chance, grab it with both hands. If it changes your life, let it. Nobody said life would be easy, they just promised it would...... be worth it."

It's funny, I know some people reading this might be taking the "methinks she doth protest too much" attitude about what I am writing. You know, the parts about feeling better. I mean, I have kind of gone on and on about it. The absolute truth is that somewhere along the way I became so accustomed to feeling certain things that when the need or want or urge to not be connected to SL daily - hourly...constantly....no longer was there - well, I personally just feel like celebrating the feelings of feeling free and good and calm. Of course there are times that I struggle with logging on. I mean, let's be honest here - there are a lot of enticing things about SL. And there are people I care about there. I wish them so much good - and I miss communicating with them SO very much. And then of course there are the moments I think of certain places in SL. Eternia being one of those places - it is a dance area where everything is in the sky and misty and lovely. I only went there maybe a handful of times...but each time I went it was beautiful.

Yesterday the monthly fee for being a premium SL member was deducted from my bank. I didn't really think too hard about rushing to cancel my premium membership, but I have been contemplating it a great deal. I basically decided that I will know a lot more about where I stand with SL in a month. My mind has run the gamut of thoughts about it. The temptation was there to just delete my account several times. I am just not sure about that. I think time will be the best decision maker for me. :) And while right now I am in a good place - and logging in isn't a huge temptation for me, things just feel more right for me now. Like they are clicking into place. Factually, I have been so withdrawn from things emotionally that it's with a great deal of relief that I wake up and go to sleep each day.

Earlier this morning I was reading a magazine and I saw a recipe for Italian Wedding Soup with a greek twist. I actually considered hopping up and running to the grocery store and getting the few fresh ingredients that I need and running back home and getting it allllll cooked up. :) It was such a terrific thought...being creative in the kitchen again. There's just so much that I used to do to keep myself occupied and I feel like in many ways, I am seeing it for the first time.

Well, it's a little rainy today...and I have literally hours ahead of me to spend the day any way I want. :) I think it's time for a timeless classic.



I somewhat resemble the comment "Well, everything below the neck works fine."

Getting S.M.A.R.T

So one of my favorite quotes these days is Obi-Wan's quote..."You find many of the truths you cling to depend greatly on your point of view"

Clarity of mind, truth in life and pure joy is not in SL for me. This morning I got SMART. About 20 minutes before I was supposed to leave the house for work, I realized - one reason I have been so miserable and crying in my car has been because of the music I have been listening to. SO...I decided to take a break from music in my car. For anyone who truly knows me, taking a break from "music" is cause to be concerned that this could be a sign of the apocalypse. I love music and live with music constantly in my life.

I quickly brought up my iTunes and hurriedly searched new Podcasts and found 3 or 4 awesome ones I couldn't wait to hear. I started downloading the files and the moment I got into my car, I plugged the synced iPod in and started learning about Capon and Yorkshire Pudding and then on the way home I laughed hard with Ricky Gervais and a few of his friends. :) It was a unique and COMPLETELY AWESOME way to spend my ride. I drive for about 25 minutes each way to work...so it's a significant amount of time I spend in the car each day.

Today is day 4 completely out of SL...and I am doing well so far - even still. I am relishing the opportunity to feel like there's no reason to hurry. :) I know so many of the feelings I had about SL and the people there were ones I imposed upon myself. I am 100% aware of that. However, that being said, I soooooooo enjoy all this new-found relaxation time. The feeling that I can take a deep breath and close my eyes and just zone. :) I said it before, and I will say it again - there are SOME people that SL is just MEANT for. Seriously. These people take great things from it and I am SO glad for them. I don't WANT them to leave. Then there are other people that SL is SO bad for. People like me. Sure, I found myself alone most nights...so it was a way for me and my social-butterfly self to always keep active (mentally at least) and not feel so alone but I have got to replace the SL time with RL time. I am looking into some sewing classes (I would LOVE to learn to sew!) and maybe some late-night bookstore trips and more weekends like last weekend where I went over to a friend's house for a clothing-swap with a bunch of strangers! I walked away with a few new friends - LOCAL friends - that I can spend time with!

Today the Culligan Man at work flirted with me again for the hmm... 8th time? THIS time he accused me of avoiding him the past few times he has been in (I have been, actually) and always saying no when he asked me out (for the record, he has NEVER asked me out). It was a total ego boost for me - I mean, in SL when someone flirts with you, it's a big ego boost... but in RL...well, there's just no comparison. :D Of course I was wearing an uber cute new shirt I got from Old Navy for my birthday and my hair is getting so long...I just felt cute today...so I guess that must have come through somehow. It always ALWAYS feels good when someone compliments you on your appearance. And I feel like I am looking...hmmm...less stressed maybe. The weight I have lost over the past 12 months is still gone - and more is coming off. I have never looked better in my adult life than I do now. I weigh less now than I have in 13 years. I feel so much more confident than I did even a couple of weeks ago. :) It's just an all-around great feeling. I feel blessed and pleasant. I am no longer faking my smiles. Wow...I just made that realization. I have been faking them for a long time. It's just great to have genuine feelings coming out of me.

I had a song picked out to embed from YouTube but the thing is, it's a bit depressing - and I feel too good to post it. LOL - I am actually giggling as I type that. :) So, instead, something different.



I smile every time I hear this song. So it's a great way to close this post. With a virtual and a RL smile.

Today's Blog, Brought To You By The Letter "B"

and "B" is for "Bettah" - (better)

I can't even begin to say how much better I feel. I catch myself now and then kind of vaguely wondering if I have had any notecards or IM's or notices. Since I have been completely out of world for 3 full days and pretty much separated from SL on a large scale for a week, I haven't been receiving any kind of notices to my mail...I shut off that option - and THANK GOODNESS I did. Phew.

I feel like SL is still a dangerous thing for me - and I don't miss IT near as much as I thought I would. I miss some of the people. :( In fact, I think of them often and I immediately send good thoughts their way.

It's a very surreal feeling to constantly feel the need to be somewhere for 17 months and then just shut it all off like a switch. It's something I have been giving a great deal of thought to - the fact that nowadays if I want to doze in the chair for a little bit - or crash on the couch for a short nap - I do it. In the past, I would grab a couple toothpicks, prop my eyes open and just log on. Now I am not constantly thinking "log on log on log on" when I have a few minutes to myself. There's no obligation to be there - and there is so much peace in that for me. I take long cleansing breaths (seriously!) and wow...it just makes me feel wonderful.

A close friend told me yesterday that one thing to practice when/if I feel bad is thinking of an amazing moment...one of the best of my life...and then the feeling of the rush of joy when you think about and meditate on that moment can help you through some rough patches. WOW, was this friend RIGHT ON. I think I was so distracted for 17 months on what I could possibly do with my life that I forgot my RL doesn't royally suck. I may not live in a McMansion or drive a 30k car or have copious amounts of money to spend every time I go somewhere - but you know what?
I have me. I have a home. I have my dream car. I have a great family. I have incredible friends who are bending over backwards right now to support me. I have blessings - so, so many blessings. I am lucky that the people I owe apologies to - my friends and family - for blowing off or forgetting or glazing over important dates in the past 17 months - these people have all forgiven me. They have hugged me close and loved me and told me how glad they are that I am doing this and how PROUD they are - collectively - of my decision to come back to them. These things continue to underscore the importance of me following through with this successfully. Tomorrow is Friday - the usual night of logging on. LOL, and then Saturday - the morning, noon and night of logging on. WOW...NOT having to log on is SO freeing. I started making plans for the weekend without trying to calculate in my SL time. YAY! It may sound silly to those who have never been in a place like I am now - but trust me. This is all a good thing.

I could type more, but I will save your eyes. ;) Last night at church we had an exercise about prayer. We were all given numbers when we walked into the sanctuary and then everyone with that number was placed in a group. Once in our groups, we discussed God (what does he look like, when is it hardest/easier to pray, do you feel like you can ask for anything) and we watched this short movie about prayer. I am embedding it here. It's pretty long, and in Spanish subtitles. It's in English though - and if you would be willing to spare the time, it's a very VERY worthwhile thing to watch. Oh, yes, at the end of the group discussion, we needed to share something for the person to our right to pray for. The woman next to me asked me to pray for her knees and ankles. She's having a harder time getting around these days. I asked the girl next to me to pray for guidance. She asked the woman next to her to pray for her schoolwork and the woman next to her asked to pray for financial stability. Apparently, she's been having to go to the food pantry and she's ashamed about that. Again, I was handed perspective on a silver platter. If all I am asking for is guidance - then I am one of the lucky ones. Please watch this...it could change your views on prayer. Thanks for taking the time to spend another day watching me splay my inner-most thoughts all over the place.

So What Exactly Led To Me Leaving SL?

Well, this is actually an extremely loaded question. So many things led to this decision. Things that were related to people in-world and out-of-world. My daughter - she would be a big huge reason for leaving. E. is an incredibly smart and beautiful girl. She has the world by a string - somehow I have still managed to end up blessed with her - and even though I havent been as involved as her mom as I feel I could have been (instead, I was distracted at times from being with her)during the past 17 months, I know she is STILL being raised well. She is getting so many awards - scholastic, character and kindness awards - and I am the luckiest mom on the planet. J. (My husband) would be another reason for me leaving. Or, rather, what we're going through right now. We have so many important decisions to make in the coming months. Clarity of mind is absolutely imparitive for me right now.

SL does NOT bring me clarity of mind. I guess some people can log in and when they leave, they take nothing with them. Me, personally, I have a great deal of trouble doing that. I bring everything with me and I take everything to heart. If a friend treated me in a way that felt unfair in SL, I would take it with me to my RL. If a person I cared about - someone I established a relationship with - lied to me or treated me with disrespect and dishonesty, it broke my heart in RL. I guess certain people aren't cut out for SL. I felt so much pain, sadness and sorrow there - it ceased to be a pleasant thing for me. I would log on and sometimes just stand alone in a room during some of my time there - and if I went out and danced or shopped...it just wasnt fullfilling. I wasnt looking for some sort of band-aid to put on an open wound...I was mostly just looking to heal the wound itself. That will never be done there for me.

I called a friend of mine in RL today that I met in SL. I immediately felt nausiated after hanging up. Not because I wasnt happy talking with this person, but because I was brought back into everything for just a moment. The lies, the sadness, the heartbreak from being hurt by people I thought so much about once - it all came rushing back AGAIN. The casual nature with which people treat hurting each other in a virtual world is absolutely astonishes me. People think nothing of completely destroying a human being and then leaving them to suffer in silence. I guess a lot of people can blow this off - or maybe they get their kicks killing people from the inside out. Not me. I can't be like that. One of the things that led me to leave SL was my own behavior. I changed a little. I became harsh and hurtful - two things I have never been. I was becoming the person I have grown to despise in SL. One of the insincere ones. The ones who use the living hell out of you and then spit you out. Those you trust and let inside your RL only to have them lie about you and garner sympathy for their inexcusable behavior to those who will listen until they use THEM up and spit THEM out and move on to another unsuspecting person. People who can only think of themselves - no matter what mess of wreckage they leave behind - just as long as THEIR needs are satisfied. These are just things I could never do...I couldn't treat another human being with that little respect and that much hurt. People who are truly heartless.



It's interesting because I have met both sides of the spectrum in SL. People who are there to be a friend and to care about each other. People who want to lift others up and do good with the time and energy they have. People with which you can have wonderful dialogs and learn so much about different places and cultures and laugh and enjoy times spent together. If and when I return to SL, it will be to see THESE people.

So ultimately, my answer for why I left would have to be just the lack of concern in general for other people's feelings.

Last night as I was tucking E. into bed, she held my face in her hand, searched my eyes until she locked on them tightly with hers - she had my complete attention - and she said "Momma, you are doing such a good job not logging onto Second Life. I don't like that place very much. It made you cry and you didn't want to play with me as much. If you make it this week without logging on, I am going to buy you the hugest present!" I almost got tears in my eyes as I leaned down and kissed her goodnight. I was so proud of her for once again parenting me out of a tough moment. What a lucky, lucky mom I am.

So now, as I find myself without much to do in my RL and a blog entry almost completed, I take a big breath and hope I make it to my "hugest present". One thing is for sure...I am so completely proud of my decision to do this for myself and for my family. The Christians say "What Would Jesus Do" and the Mormons say "Choose The Right"...I think both are on my side today. I just feel so much better all around.

Until the next entry...

Another Day, Feeling Stronger

I let myself cry in the car in the morning on the way to work. Almost every day. I was initially crying tears of sadness, and they have more recently morphed to tears of frustration and anger. I can't even begin to tell anyone how angry I am with myself. I shake my head in anger and mad tears fall. The car in the morning is where I feel most susceptible to giving up on being proud of myself. For whatever reason, this private time I get to myself becomes a time for me to chastise myself for the things I have done that have led me to this point. Some mornings I want to stop the car, climb out and tell everyone to get away from me. I want to warn them away - tell them that I am weak and disgusting...that only someone THIS weak in spirit would be this broken. I want to scream at them and crumple into a ball in the middle of the road while they all just stare at me. Then the feeling passes right about the time I am a minute or two from work. Thankfully, I generally am so concerned about being at work on time, I never do jump out of my car. I do listen to this song a lot in the mornings though...



Once I get to work, I have regained the grasp on my emotions and I am almost immediately distracted by other people's problems (work-related) and a desk full of work to feel bad. I work with the most amazing people on the planet - so nine times out of ten when I leave the office, I leave completely satisfied with myself. I sigh when I climb into the car and say a quick word of thanks for having the privilege of working with the coolest people on earth and for even having a job at all...I am so incredibly blessed when it comes to that. So many people are struggling and suffering - and while I am certainly not flush with cash, at least I am hearing about bonuses and opportunities to advance when others have unemployment checks that will be running out soon.

There have been many things that I have felt that I have gained from leaving SL. I guess I will talk about them now. One would be a sense that my mind is clearer. There is a true clarity that comes from only living one life - and trying to make that life exactly what I want it to be, rather than creating a better life virtually. There were times in the past when I threatened to leave SL - I wasn't ready to though - that's so obvious to me now. I guess it took the events of last week and the events leading up to the events that finally did it for me. But I think my reasons for finally leaving SL might be better as a post by themselves. :)

Another thing I have gained is perspective. Things that seemed so important in my mind now seem very far away and completely unimportant. An example? Hmmm...losing a piece of furniture because SL was being SL and somehow lost a 1700L something-or-another used to have some sort of affect on me. I was disturbed. I would stop everything and search or contact tech support to find where it could have gone. I wouldn't rest until it was back. I would IM the creator if it couldn't be found...and try and figure out how to get another copy. I wasted so much time on something that didn't exist. I guess that's what I mean by perspective.

Also, problems or disagreements with people seem so much less important. Part of my problem with SL is that I had an incredibly difficult time pretending to be someone else - so I just never tried. A argument or slam was personal for me - even if the person on the other end didn't mean it to be, it still felt intensely personal...an attack on my heart, soul and mind when it could have been meant as nothing more than their "play-time" acting...for me...someone sincere and there in-world with genuine feelings, it was excruciating to be on the other end of that pain. When I was in the 5K this year, I took so many people with me emotionally. As I trudged up the side of a mountain, I prayed for people/avatars - using their SL names...I thanked God that I felt their love and support and I was so grateful and blessed by their friendship and love. There are a handful of genuine loving and caring people in SL. Those are the individuals I will miss so very much.

Last night when I logged on to attend the gallery opening, I was prepared to defend my choices to leave to anyone who bothered to look at my profile and see that I was separating myself from SL. None of that came...which made me smile. I was afraid that my closest friends would want me to stay (and some of them did say that) but all of them said they were happy for me - and that meant SO very much. Maybe I will come back when I can handle the hurt with a tougher skin. When I can get up and away from SL without feeling like I need to stay logged on. When the event was over last night, I walked back to my house and logged off looking at my pets in SL - dog Engla and kitten Jett. I had just wiped a few tears, hugging a dear loving friend goodbye - a friend who has been there for me countless times - and a friend who wished me nothing but happiness, heath and joy. I immediately wanted to go back and log on again. I wanted to stay...I wanted to change my mind and just stay. But you know, it's not the moments where I am involved in conversations with others and attending a specific event that are the problem. It's the moments where I have nothing to do...I am just standing in a virtual room waiting - not wanting to miss anything, but not having anything to miss. That moment of just waiting for something to occur...and not wanting to miss that moment SHOULD it happen. It's difficult to explain, but when I was a very young child my mother tells me that on evenings that they had people over, I would climb out of my crib (they had no idea how I managed to do it) and I would crawl over to my bedroom door and eventually fall asleep with my face so close to the door that in the morning when she went to retrieve me, she would have to open the door so carefully, so as not to disturb a sleeping Stephie. I love a party, I love people, I don't want to miss a minute of the fun. I am finding that a little bit of a struggle, on nights like tonight. I don't intend to log back in until Sunday of next week for a meeting...so I am sitting here now wiggling my toes and wondering if "everyone" is doing okay...and WHAT they are doing...and what I am missing. But I am confident that in time I won't find it so difficult.

Mornings are going to be rough...

I have decided mornings are going to be rough. Right now, I have my coffee, my laptop, my Bible, iTunes and my 8 year old all keeping me grounded and sane.

I want to talk a little this morning about exhaustion. Can I just share right now that living two lives can be completely exhausting? So many times over this weekend I just felt total relief that I had one life (the more important life, I might add) to be worrying about right now. In SL, I loved being so many of the things I am in RL. I loved listening to people - learning about them, having them share their thoughts, worries and concerns with me and then in some cases, feeling like I helped them in some way. Helping people makes me feel whole. I even helped people recently in the midst of my own pain and sorrow. I tend to push pain and sorrow and my own needs and wants aside often for the sake of others. I also tend to let people think everything is just fine on the outside when on the inside I feel as if my insides have liquefied and are being sucked out of my body with a vacuum.

Speaking of vacuums, one thing I always loved about SL is the fact that nothing is ever DIRTY. :) There's never a house to clean up. Last night after a great dinner (cooking again! YAY - I decided to make a mini Thanksgiving, since it's my favorite holiday) I was talking with E (my daughter) and J (my husband) and we got around to discussing goals and expectations just certain ones we have for each other. For whatever reason, I felt bold enough in that moment to say "I expect you both to help keep the living room clean. One of the things that drew me to SL was that everything was clean, neat and in order. I need a room in this house that is clean, neat and completely in order - it makes my brain feel settled - and that room needs to be the living room." One thing I can say for SL, I think I found some cajones there. Old Stephanie never would have had the courage or power to stand up for herself. Standing up for others has never been a problem. Standing up for ME - that has been tough. I have been recognizing lately that I feel stronger as a human being - more likely to admit I need things or want things a certain way. More dissection on that later.

So...as I talked about at the start of this post...a big part of giving something up is breaking the cycle of events that happen even before the habit itself. Last week I tried several things. One time I find myself powerless against the "need" to log on is after I pick Emmy up at school. I got into the habit of rushing home and logging on - regardless of whether or not I had any errands to do. Many times I would just throw the errand out the window. I considered everything an interruption of my SL anyway. Every moment of the day I wasn't online, I was thinking about what I was going to do when I did log on. I frequently resented the day-to-day "interruptions" like grocery shopping, stopping at the post office, going to the store for something or even volunteering. Last week I practiced stopping everything when I picked E up and we would do things OUT of the house. We went to an antique store last week and the library too. Getting back in touch with reality, while difficult for many to comprehend who have not been addicted to something like SL, is absolutely instrumental in feeling better. I am going to list below some of the other things I have found helpful in distracting me from getting into the cycle of events before they even start:

• Standing up and walking around, finding something to wipe, scrub or wash
• Finding other things to do with my hands...Thursday night last week it took knitting, the television (thank you, Olympics!) and a book for me to eventually just close my eyes and fall asleep
• Logging on to FaceBook and catching up with real life friends there
• Logging on to YouTube and listening to music
• Cooking
• Thinking and talking through needs and ideas about life with J or others

Eventually the urges pass and I emerge healthy and forcefully fight that draw that I have been feeling from time to time.

Tonight I will be logging on to attend an art exhibition (in Second Life, I kind of got into the photography thing) and will mostly likely have to change my hair and clothes (that have not been changed in maybe five days) and look nice for the event. There will be lots of people/avatars I know there...I am not sure how many know that I am transitioning out of SL. I intend to keep a space there for now, as I haven't completely severed all ties with everyone (more about that later), but I need to only go in-world on my terms. J has encouraged me to not give it up completely...but I think that's because he knows that I will just pester him to do stuff around the house and keep him from spending the entire night in HIS office online if I did. :)

Anyway, I am kind of dreading being in-world tonight. The last couple of times I have logged on, I have been IM'd (Instant Messaged) constantly. It just goes ping-ping, ping-ping non-stop and I get into long conversations and then find it hard to just log off. Although, I will say, yesterday when I meant to be online for a couple of minutes and instead was online for over an hour - it turned out very well. Sometimes God knows - He communicates between believers who NEED to talk. Two people who may have never spoken before - only knew of one another - and suddenly BOOM...a conversation happens that benefits both people and calms some of the stormy seas of confusion and acceptance that still exist. I think tonight before logging on - as strange as this sounds - I will offer my time online to God. I feel like if I do that, it will help me with the entire experience. It's 30 minutes long...I can survive that.

Leaving everyone with a song today. This one has been on repeat in my car lately. It makes me feel strong and healthy...for some strange reason. I don't think many people would disagree that Alanis is a STRONG woman. LOL.

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To Die or Not To Die...No Longer A Question.

This blog is basically going to be an in-your-face, one-sided dialog about my emergence from an addiction. Most people who know me would never suspect I am/was addicted to anything other than being nice to people. I don't mean to sound like I am being conceited or egotistical, but really - I am just trying to be honest. Whether I believe it or not, it's what people say about me on my facebook page and while it simultaneously makes me happy and grumbly, it is what it is. And speaking of honesty, this blog will be smeared with honesty. The names will be changed to protect the innocent, but I just wanted you (the reader) to be prepared for that. Brutal and painful at times, but also so necessary in admitting you have a problem and also so necessary in the journey of self-discovery that allows you to emerge healthy. But here I am, going off track already.

Addiction is an interesting word. It conjures all sorts of nasty images in people's heads. I mean, we never really use addiction in a positive way, right? We don't find ourselves saying "he is addicted to kindness" or "she is addicted to telling humorous stories". Instead, the word addiction is saved for the seriously bad juju. And I am here to tell you, I have been addicted to some serious juju for the past seventeen months.

Second Life has been described by many as an MMORPG - otherwise known as a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game. I challenge that description and instead insist that Second Life (abbreviated "SL") is actually more of a high-level, completely interactive social network. If you haven't experienced anything like it, I am not sure I recommend that you try. On the other hand, for those curious, there's nothing I can do to stop you. Although, before trying it, I would hasten to suggest that you read about some of the messes that it has created in some people's lives - just so you walk in with your wits about you - should you decide to try it.

http://www.emotionalwellbeingblog.com/2007/08/is-second-life-ultimate-cyber-addiction.html

I learned about SL innocently enough. I attended a conference in Anchorage, Alaska and saw a session about Second Life. I had absolutely no clue about it, but as someone who has supported online social networking for a decade, I felt compelled to attend. I signed up for an account in the session and immediately got to work creating an avatar and shopping in the many different free places...grabbing everything in sight because, well, it was FREE. I soon learned that there was a pretty dark side to SL...vampires, orgy rooms, all sorts of activities I had never even imagined taking place everywhere I looked. Sure, there was innocent stuff too - which I found myself gravitating towards more than the questionable. BUT, if I was smarter, I would have run the other direction early in my introduction to this world where everything goes...literally everything. Instead, I searched out some familiar things - I found a place to rent a house in a New England community and slowly got to know my neighbors and landlady. I became a friend to many and I was well-loved, respected and appreciated and I found myself spending as much as 10-12 hours online in SL on the weekends, cultivating these relationships with people from around the world. Fast forward to December 31, 2009 and me - the PTA mom, the women's shelter volunteer, the insurance associate, the Christian - me, Stephanie - not me, the avatar - wanted to curl up into a ball and just die from the pain of everything.

For one instant, I seriously considered it. I was on a treacherously icy road and my gas light had just come on. I had $4 in my wallet and $2 in my checkbook. Christmas had just passed and payday hadn't come yet. I was coming from such a dark place emotionally and this trivial annoyance somehow became my breaking point. I pulled over to the nearest gas station and put $4 worth of gas in my car. My gas light went off and I continued to creep home in the inky darkness that surrounded me. Pools of light from the streetlights created a path for me to travel slowly home. There was snow swirling all about and every time I applied even the slightest bit of pressure to my brake pedal, Svetlana (my Scion X-B) would start skidding to and fro. There are a lot of steep hills in Boise - it's a mountainous area. It was an extremely dangerous drive. Things rushed through my mind. How did I get here? Not here in my location, but here in my mind? How did I find myself thoroughly depressed, completely exhausted, emotionally destroyed to the very depths of my soul? How did I find myself looking at empty parking lot after empty parking lot - just wishing for the courage to turn into the lot, park my car overnight, cry myself to sleep and never wake up again. Or even to slide off the road down an embankment never to feel hurt or pain again.

I am pretty sure I know some reasons why. I need to think them out and talk them out, however. Take them out of my brain, dissect them with a Y-incision (ugh, I know...my friend Brandon had to dissect things for me in high school - I am not so good at dissecting), get past them and move on with my life and re-establish my emotional health. This blog will be my own personal journey to find the answer to all of these questions and also continue to give me the courage to breath in and out and smile and find Stephanie again. I can only hope and pray that it may also act as a catalyst to help others who are also seeking emergence into a more healthy emotional state.

I will continue my train of thought again later. Thank you for reading. I wish wonderful things for all of us.