“No smoke, with no fire.
No silence if there’s no sound.
One way or another, you’re going to put me out,
Drinks flowing like water, too drunk to turn off the light.
Stay under the covers, who knows how we’ll end the night.”
I leveled up to the next year, looking back (one life saving surgery, two car accidents, and countless other curveballs later) I’m kind of proud I am still standing. I have done a lot of reflecting lately and I finally did thing and made the final attempt at contact. To schedule the trip I’ve been trying to schedule for a few months on my own. That’s part of the problem – it’s always on my own. Now, I think I’m finally accepting that not every quest has a victory screen. I spent entirely too long thinking if I picked the right side quest, the right dialogue option, or if I waited long enough, the story would continue the way I had hoped.
Sometimes that’s true. Sometimes it’s not.
Some story lines end because you make the wrong choice. Some end because no matter how much you want it to work out, you’re the only one putting in effort and it’s exhausting. Others end because the other player logs off. Sometimes, no matter how much experience you have or how carefully you pick your dialogue options, there just isn’t a path that leads to where you hoped.
I don’t regret trying. I’d rather be the person who fought for a relationship. The person who fought for a friendship, than the person who walked away who will be left wondering ‘what if?‘ However, there comes a point where continuing it isn’t perseverance anymore. It’s refusing to acknowledge that the quest has already ended.
So despite messaging someone with slow and rare responses (if they ever come). Despite driving countless hours just to see someone who would never make the same for you, not even once. Despite having a severe back injury that makes sitting more than an hour almost unbearable, to the point you’ve said goodbye to gaming and hobbies that required sitting up (goodbye crocheting, for now). It’s time. Let’s not consider this a fail quest though. It’s just one that is complete. Time to turn it in, redeem the rewards, and close the quest log on this chapter of my life. Accept the rewards and the lessons it offered.
There’s comfort in knowing that just because I turn in this quest, it doesn’t mean the game is over. It just means I am no longer standing in the same place, waiting for the next objective to appear. If life surprises me again and that quest becomes available again, that’s okay. But I can’t keep standing still waiting for an update that may never come. There are still unexplored places on the map, there are side quest I haven’t discovered. People I haven’t met. Adventures waiting to be lived.
… I can’t wait to see what the next chapter has in store.
“Just don’t hang your hopes on me,
I wanna feel something,
God, you look so pretty when you tell me that you love me….
I wish that I could lie, but my mind gets in the way.
I know you think that I’m, always way to self aware.
Oh, we could never be together, but it’s nice to play pretend.
I wish that I could lie, but I’m way too self aware.”