It's Okay to Not Be Okay - an Update from FJ

Where Are We Now?

From this week they’re gradually reintroducing NJ to the idea of being at her grandparents during office hours. This could take 4+ weeks to finish but needs to be done for when wifey might be off furlough.

What This Means

1. I have more housework to do in my daily routine than at the in-laws, so more physical exertion.
2. NJ is awake the same length of time as wifey and is hyperactive. So she’s always on the go and nearly always making noise. That makes concentration highly unlikely.
3. Whatever I do can be interrupted at any moment.

This Year So Far

1. My Mum passed away after her battle with Alzheimers (Read: In There Somewhere).
2. My father-in-law collapsed, leading to him being banned from driving for six months. This meant wifey’s had to do more driving than was the case previously.
3. I ended up in hospital for a few days after a random seizure.
4. We went into lock-down at the in-laws when COVID-19 hit the UK hard.
5. My cat had to be put to sleep (apparently he had a cancer as well as loads of other stuff wrong).
6. We’ve moved all our stuff back home again.

I don’t list this for sympathy – just stating facts to give context to the rest.

I’m Not Okay

Since moving back, my energy has seriously crashed. I’m sleeping way more than normal and not feeling less tired. My pain levels and other Fibromyalgia symptoms yo-yo like crazy and my depression is surfacing more than before.

Although it’s okay to not be okay, I am not exactly at peace with all this.

What This Means

1. I’ve struggled to play a game for more than a couple of hours a day. Yesterday I managed 3 hours or so, but it’s taken nearly two weeks to get to that point.
2. I can’t play a game that requires a lot of concentration or skill. Coupled with NJ being here, any aspect of gaming that could involve cutscenes or long quests/missions, is out at the moment.
3. I need to prioritise gaming for gaming’s sake, to enjoy it and to rest.
4. I don’t have the concentration span, or energy, for detailed guide writing.

What I’m Not Doing

• New gaming guides, except anything under “what I may do”.
• No long-form posts
• No new LOTRO deeds/maps (except, see below).

What I May Do

1. Updating LOTRO Festival Guides
2. There is one LOTRO deed guide needed to finish up the Bree-land Deeds. That requires little except to pull it together.
3. Hopefully both SWTOR FanFiction and LOTRO FanFiction
4. My own Fantasy Writing. I may publish standalone chapters like Happier Times, but my main focus is Book 1 at this point.

SWTOR

Until NJ is properly into a routine of the working days being at her grandparents, my SWTOR time will have to be slowly reintroduced too.

Some parts of SWTOR require a certain time allocation and I can’t suddenly drop what I’m doing (because of Level Sync). This means SWTOR time will need to be either during the day when NJ is at the grandparents, or late at night. And pain impacts my ability to play this too.

But I will try to “rehab” myself back in, maybe on my SWTOR F2P account.

LOTRO

My LOTRO approach is nearly “normal” – because I’m overlevelled on my main character, I can continue exploring ‘new’ content.

However, my dualboxing / duoquesting will likely not happen for a while because of low energy and playing a few characters makes me restless.

The main issue here is energy – two hours in a day doesn’t get you far. And when I’m down, I don’t want to spoil my exploration of a new region with the black cloud over my head. I want to enjoy it, which conversely means, playing it less than I would normally.

FFXIV

In the same vein as SWTOR, I’m only getting into Final Fantasy XIV late at night, if I want to progress the main story.

It also has cutscenes and quests requiring certain time allocations. So it is treated much the same as SWTOR. The only difference is I have some reputations to work on and crafting to level. And, as with LOTRO, you can overlevel in FFXIV , which makes these things interruptible.