Giving things up

I just wrote a very sad email. A friend had asked, several times actually, if we wanted to come to the LARP she's organising this spring. I've been avoiding giving her an answer, but today I did. I wrote and said no thank you. We simply can't. And the moment I hit the send button, my heart felt like it was bursting.

I want to!! I want to keep my friends! I want to go to LARPs! I want to fantasize, roleplay, sleep in the woods and cook over an open fire. I want to wear the outfits I've sewn myself and for a moment, a few hours or a few days, enter a different reality, become someone else. I want that!

But I know that whatever I might fantasize about now, the last ten times we've tried it I haven't really been up for it. Sometimes I've skipped out in the last minute (a shitty thing to do) and sometimes I've gone through with it, out of duty more than enjoyment, and not gotten that much out of it.

I'm afraid that if we ever do have the time and energy again that all our friends will have forgotten us. Forgotten me. They do a hundred fun things every week (so I read on Facebook) and I don't. I'm not there. For the first few years I always thought that well, they'll be there when I get back to it, but I wonder how long that window will stay open? How long before any attempt to rejoin the ranks would be met with "who are you?"

And at the same time I simply can't work up enough enthusiasm about it. I like being home at the evening at week nights. I don't like going out after dinner, I'm tired and I want to be with Mistress the few hours we have alone together. I can go out, but the truth is I don't want to.

And our weekends are hard work taking care of little S. We've tried, numerous times, to bring her to things we enjoy, but she doesn't enjoy them and that ruins it for us. Of course we can go to a meeting and have her with us - but at least one of us will spend the entire time focusing on her, because otherwise she'll either destroy something, throw a tantrum or disappear, and that's not much of a meeting.

The truth is that the free time we do get we need to spend in a way that gives immediate satisfaction. Not planning for fun things that are going to happen in three months - we can't afford that. We need things that are fun now.

And I do get to see friends. The few I have that are 1) not super busy having a life and a hobby and not have time for me or living in a different city and 2) those that I've come close enough to actually call without anything specific in mind, those that want to go grab a coffee with me in particular, those that I can talk to about anything and nothing and simply enjoy the company of. I have those, and maybe the thing is that that is enough.

And also, the Master thesis. For once I'm doing a project at school. School takes up most of my energy not spent on little S, and that means I don't have much left. I actually enjoy what we're doing right now, but it drains me. I come home and I mostly want to sleep. Or kill things on the Playstation.

I don't know. I guess it's not the end of the world if I'm not one of the cool kids and all my acquaintances forget about me. Maybe what I'm grieving is a phase in my life that is over? LARPing saved my life (literary - it was at one of those times during my upbringing when I was a the brink of suicide) when I was seventeen, and has been my main thing in life until now. Or maybe until a couple of years ago.

Maybe I'm growing up - prioritising home life, school and job application, being a mom and having a nice home, over hobby and projects. I don't know. And I don't know whether it's a good thing or not. It is as it is, I guess, for the time being.