*Sigh*

Another day, another dollar; damn, I'm depressed.

I miss Kah. He was a lot of fun, but he left for another server.

L. quit playing and now our raiding has suffered. He had that rare charisma that makes a raid leader special. I also feel like I lost a friend. I support his reasons for leaving, but that doesn't make me feel any less sad. B. is leading the raids now, but it's not the same. She hasn't fully come into her own yet, but it will happen. It will take time for people to develop the confidence in her that they had in him, and it will take time for her to fully develop her own style. We took other raiding losses too. It's hard for her to come into her own when she has to rebuild the raiding core as well.

DP is still around, but he plays on another server. I suppose that's just as well since I like RP and he doesn't, but it means that we don't play together much. He's also going through some changes so that he doesn't play as much.

M/M/G is long gone from the game and we've lost contact. It hurts a bit, but I understand why. I knew it was just a matter of time back when we had a long conversation about his previous girlfriend over 2 years ago. People are consistent with who they are. You watch how somebody treats the other people in their life and listen to how they treated other people in their past, and you can get a pretty good idea of how they will treat you. He is intense, a thinker, and a generally great guy, but he's a leaver, meaning he will leave eventually. I doubt he can commit to any relationship, and I'm not talking about just romantic ones. He's not the type that has long term friends. It's not that he doesn't care or that he doesn't have deep relationships, but for a variety of reasons he discards people. In some cases like his girlfriend that he talked to me about, he regretted it later. I was never that big of a part of his life, just a casual friend he met in WoW. It was just a matter of time. Still, I enjoyed talking to him, and I get too attached to people, even casual internet friends.

I'm still not wild about being a guild leader. Part of it is the raiding. Endless farming mats for raids, time spent on personnel issues, discussions about loot, working to gear up rolls, and long hours spent on raiding, researching and learning fights - raiding is such a grind. And we're not even a raiding guild! I can't imagine what it would be like if we were one where people were required to attend a certain number of raids each week with minimum dps/tps/hps type requirements. But we can't stop raiding as a guild. While we are a casual guild and we do have an RP focus, by virtue of the fact that we raid, we are a raiding guild. And when we do raid, we are serious at being successful at it.

The biggest part of being a guild leader that I hate is dealing with personnel issues. I mentioned that in talking about raiding, but there is more to it than that. Personnel issues are pervasive. Sometimes it reminds me of dealing with the "he was breathing" issues of dealing with children even though in theory these are primarily adults. Some are subtle power ploys by individuals - those are the worst. I sincerely ~hate~ it when I have to confront somebody about something they did. It takes so much time and energy to research the facts of an event, figure out what to do about the issue, and then handle the issue or delegate it to be handled or force myself to let it go. The biggest problem I have is that I seem to be the most likely, and in some cases, the most able to deal with these type of problems. Personnel problems suck the fun out of the game.

And then there are the recruitment interviews. Those are stressful. We do them as RP which can be fun. But so often the prospective member contacts me when I'm in the middle of something else or have a limited amount of time. Then I have to scramble to find somebody else or set up another time or try to hurry through it. I hate hurrying through them, but to do them right takes about an hour. There goes my chance to do an instance that night or else I end up staying on longer than I intended to deal with it.

It would be one thing if the game was limited to the game, but it's not. It takes time outside of the game to research gear for my characters, correspond with the other officers on the forums, keep up with the member forums, and many other little details.

Then there is work. I have no desire to work. I feel moments of inspiration, but then the mire sucks it back out of me. In part it's the memory of 5 years ago when I essentially broke down. I just can't go back to losing myself to my job. When I start to really get into enjoying my work again, the breaks lock down and I resist doing it at all. On top of that, there is so much to do. It could easily overwhelm me. This last winter I started having panic attacks when I was working. I got through it, but then this last week I had another one.

And the house! The kids! The husband! The house whispers constantly. ... clean me, wash me, fix me, organize me ... The whispers are never ending. Doctor appointments, Mom's taxi service, groceries to buy, bills to pay, the checkbook to balance, hair appointments, orthodontic and dental appointments ... the chores and errands are endless.

Which brings me back to Warcraft. Ah, the nice manageable world ... of Warcraft. Yes, there is a lot of work there. Yes, if I didn't spend time on it, I would have more time for the other aspects of my life. There is a drug-like quality to it. It is a pleasant escape from the whispers and lets me tune out the other demands for a period of time. It is like an anesthetic. But the real world does not go away. My problems and workload remain. Warcraft can be both a blessing and a curse. I need some amount of recreation. I had a problem for a number of years that I didn't know how to play or have any form of frivolous recreation that I actually enjoyed. But Warcraft becomes part of the problem when I spend time on it that I really need to spend on dealing with other areas of my life. It is seductive, and I have fallen into that trap from time to time. It is only part of the problem. I have a tendency to play games, even ones I don't really enjoy like solitaire, compulsively. I can use it as an anestetic just like I can WoW, but there is no real pleasure in it, just numbness. At least I get pleasure from WoW as long as I keep it in it's proper place as entertainment, not as an anesthetic.

*sigh*

But what I want right now is an anesthetic. The depression is still here. This is a dangerous time for me to play. It is too tempting to lose myself in the game.