Why I Am (Mostly) Leaving SL

Or at least taking a long break.....

First, I am amazed no one has made any offer at all for my land in the Cay.

Fact is, my lower back has had trouble for a couple of years and work requires me to sit enough already; spending (nearly all) my free time in SL has been bad for my back and body, and my back flared up very bad about two weeks ago, enough that I finally got an epidural injection of steroids into my spine to see if that helps. So far, too early to say, but I know sitting is not good. It all began with a sports related injury, but at my age (mid 40's now...unbelievably to me) it's easy to have more than one thing wrong with the back. I clearly do.

The combination of SL living and lower back injury has sent my fitness, long a thing I prized, into disarray. It seems like yesterday I was an athlete, and now I have to find something like walking to replace martial arts and weightlifting, or at least for the moment. No matter, I know crouching into the SL hunch, sitting in my chair for hours at a time, has been bad for my body and led to increased pain. So it goes. Mustard gas and roses.

I had a hell of a lot of fun in SL, but was never very good at, as my teenage son says, being a "recreational user." That may be the case now, if I come in for just a few hours a month, but mostly I'm realizing how much bloody time I spent there, removed from my body sensations and the emotional realities of living in RL. As my dear first friend, Lilikoi, put it when I told her I was taking a break: rl is the best life we really have....or something close to that. She is Euro....what a sweet person and one of many I miss already.

For I do have a few very good friends in SL, people I admire and trust, a few at least. And I do not mean to walk away from my committments to protect those I am sworn to protect in world, especially my Ward and the Duchess. It would not take me long to log in and set someone right on their accounts....

Ah, it has been fun to play soldier, Knight, protector, diplomat, lord, warrior...but it has all been nothing but play. It has helped the loneliness I have from working from home about half the time...long days in the mountains home by myself; losing SL there will be very hard. But I have to begin recuperating body and even soul, the latter just a bit.

For while some have suggested to me that SL is like this world, just consciousness residing in forms of pure energy, or that the people we are there are enhancements of our real selves, even those we would really like to be, I do not believe it. Tele was part of who I am, sure, and part of who I would like to be: all the things I list in the last paragraph. But it is much more important that I be the best real me I really can be, and SL has gotten in the way of that. It does not for everyone, and I surely spent too much time there; others have better abilities to balance than I do. But my relationship with my son, the ever evolving, growing, challenging relationship with my spouse, my need to continually find new parts of myself or realize new challenges...these things take a hell of a lot of energy. No experience in SL can compare to an hour on a real sailing ship, or cooking with my family, or even the hard challenges on my job.

Sighs.

I do not have time to go back and reread this or to pretty it up. This tells the tale enough. Tele is not being deleted; he will appear from time to time. But only as my back heals and my heart feels more engaged with the real world around me. God, I had fun. Did I ever! Especially in tournaments and group combats, in talking to friends, in making others feel "safe." I may still do a little of that here and there, but my RL is asking very much of me right now; work, home, parenting....each a full time job. And there my energy has to go.

What a long strange trip into the rabbit hole it has been. How marvelous...even if ill adapted to meshing with my rl. I will miss everyone very much; I already do. I'll try to catch folks from time to time, and I remain a part of the Fina Red and the Household of Loch Avie. But oh, how I will miss Lilikoi, Kalia, Eva, Hotspur, Bryanlion, Harald, Sera, Dia, Torvold...the list is very long. Wish me all well, and pray for me those of you that do; I surely need it. There is one critical difference: one cannot pray for an avatar...one can surely pray for his typist.

Love to all, sincerely. I am not closing this blog down either. Some things may appear here from time to time.

Tele's typist....