Letting Go....

I've been thinking a lot about letting go lately. It's been a hard couple weeks.

We've had a death at school, and it's cast a pall on the girl's whole school. I don't have any details - the girls weren't particularly close to her. Shared some classes and a couple birthday parties. Not best friends, but neighbors. I haven't even seen her since school got out last year, but I'm pretty upset. It's hard to field their questions and be there for them when I don't know what is going on but I understand why they don't tell people. They say it's "natural causes", but I fail to see how anything natural can take a seemingly healthy 14-year-old girl as she's getting ready for school one morning. The girls keep trying to think of things, and I can't give them any answers. This is hard on the "Mom knows everything" rep, and you feel like such a dope. I feel so awful for her parents.

My eldest is turning 18 in two months. I'm not ready. I won't say inane stuff about "where did the time go" because I know bloody well where it went. I was here for it all, I assure you. But even with 18 years of warning I'm still not ready. It's amazing how proud of them you can be and how terrified for them you can be at the same time. I AM proud of him. He's really stepped up to the plate here these last six months, and while it doesn't allay any of those worries that forment in my head if I let myself think too hard I'm fairly confident he'll at least go out and make his own mistakes instead of some festive variations on mine and his father's.

My mom had surgery. They removed a tumor, and they've been testing it to find out if it's cancerous or not. We've been through a two month roller-coaster-ride to get to that point, and waiting for the verdict this last week has been really hard. We've both been really scared. We spend most of our efforts trying to pretend we aren't to each other, though. I'm really far away so all I can do is call her incessantly and drive her crazy. She's got her sister there to do that in person much better than I'll ever manage it, though. I try to let the local talent handle it as much as I can and keep it to myself but it's hard. I just got off the phone with her and they say now for sure it's not cancer, but they think she needs a hysterectomy anyways. We can handle that. After all the rest of it that seems like a blessing, rather than a problem. Thanks be to a gifting God.

I've had this song running through my head for the last two days. Not the fruity Tammy-Faye Baker style version by Andrea Bocelli and Celine Dion, but the one in the movie "Quest for Camelot". She's sitting in a window watching her child go off to Lord knows what and there's nothing she can do but pray.

The Prayer

I pray you'll be my eyes
And watch them where they go
And help them to be wise
Help me to let go.

Every mother's prayer
Every child knows
Lead them to a place
Guide them with your grace
To a place where they'll be safe

I pray they find your light
And hold it in their hearts
As darkness falls each night
Remind them where you are

Every mother's prayer
Every child knows
Need to find a place
Guide them to a place
Give them faith so they'll be safe

Lead them to a place
Guide them with your grace
To a place where they'll be safe

C. Bayer Sager, D. Foster

I was talking to a friend on Gamerdad's message board and my recent forays out into some of the more mainstream message boards came up. He joked that general gaming boards are like Ravenholme (a certain level in the game Half-Life2). He was basically likening them to the Hell level in Doom. I totally agree with him. Holy Cow!

But Gordon Freeman has to go in even when things look dicey, and I'm thinking I need to as well. I realized this after going to PAX. I'd been really pretty isolated from the rest of the community. It's safe on Gamerdad. Everyone supports each other. We're pretty reasonable with each other. That's not the way the rest of the world works. And if we're ever going to figure out how to talk to them, we're going to have to do it out there in the real world.

I've been in a sort of mailstorm with a real-world friend of mine about it, too. She's on a bunch of panels and organizations about women in the gaming industry and what have you, but she never actually deigns to consort with actual gamers. They sit around in these conferences and come up with all this stuff but they never talk to anyone who doesn't agree with them and then they're shocked as all getout when they finally do emerge and try to put the stuff they came up with in play and it has no effect. I'm supposed to go to one of these next week, and I honestly don't know how I'm going to deal with it.

As far as the message boards go, I'm going to try to keep it up. At least one post a day per board. It's good for me to keep a hand in what's going on in the shallow and frothing end of the gaming pool. The currents there can be nasty as all get-out. I managed to get a lock-down on the first thread I started myself on Penny Arcade due to a couple smacktards just thrashing their way in. This is not exactly an auspicious beginning, but since then it's gone okay. Red vs Blue has gone better. If nothing else, I'll be able to practice my witty insults. ;)