Today, I was scrolling through Reddit and came across posts in which they talked about Minecraft. For a little while now, I had wanted to get back into playing the game a bit, but I always ended up playing something in my Steam library. Okay by something it was either The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim or it was Batman: Arkham Knight. But after seeing posts of other people creating beautiful cities and re-creating some of their favorite fictional and fantasy worlds, I had finally given in and started a new world today.
There's a lot of, well, nostalgia from it all (if you couldn't guess from the title of the post). First of all, I named the world "Gotham Renaissance". Why? Well, because on the Batpham world, between building each of our own houses on the island/peninsula in which the world was spawned, we slowly created our own village and eventually made it into our "city" as we brought villagers in for a marketplace (also dubbed the "sweat shop") and as we let other friends join and bring their friends. We eventually built a wall around our homes and lit up the inside so that hostile mobs don't get in and risk destroying each of our own, unique creations.
Eventually, because in my own mind I liked the idea of naming it a city, I had asked the group what we should call it. Naturally, I was going to default to Gotham City because of how much I like Batman, but I didn't want to come off or become too obsessive over the character as I had been seen as doing in the previous friend group. Although this one indulged me because they said, "well we are the Batpham aren't we?"
So as I started this new Minecraft world, I had wanted to relive that experience of building a bustling city, although since this is now a singleplayer one, save for if my siblings care to join (can't do anything more than a LAN party since I'm running this from my Vengeance desktop), I had found a in-game village and will slowly develop that into my city. Why the "Renaissance" part of the name? Because at first I was going to name the world "Rebirth" in reference to Batman Rebirth. Then I wanted to name it Gotham Rebirth, but after staring at the name for a few moments, I didn't really like the way the word "Rebirth" looks, so I googled for synonyms, and that's how I ended up on Renaissance.
Effectively, I am re-creating the Gotham City I had built with friends. But it's different now. We've gone our separate ways, and all I have of them now are just distant memories. I remember the time I had pranked another player, and since at that time I had only a crush on Sophia and she was asking me if I had anything to do with it, I didn't really want to come forth and say that I did. Since I had destroyed part of the other player's house, I figured I should do the same to mine. And so, I blew up my own house on the server, and proceeded to go radio silent on the discord voice channel. I was still in the channel, but I refused to speak because I felt shame and no longer found the fun in the prank I had pulled.
Shame because in reality that prank wasn't so much of a prank than it was a trolling/griefing. And that I was called out on it by the girl I had a fancy for. I remember hearing Dan and Sophia just continue to play and talk, and I was just sitting idly on the server, silent. Eventually I was on my phone and just on TikTok, and this was after they had tried to get me to get back into active playing and talking. Since my mic wasn't muted, the sounds of TikTok went through, and since Sophia also used the app, she said "I hear TikTok" and stuff along the lines of knowing I was okay in the end.
I don't know, maybe I don't really describe that moment or memory that well, but I do remember that the following day she had asked me if I was okay, and at that point, I hadn't known if she liked me back yet, so I don't know if she was asking to ask, or asking to comfort me or whatever. All I do know is that I remember these things because they were good times.
Hopefully that memory was written out well enough that you can picture at least something. But as I remembered that while sitting in my room now starting to work on a house that I will convert into either a city hall or into Wayne Manor, I just froze and remembered of all the time and memories I had with the Batpham on that server. I felt nostalgia. I felt that wave of "feelsgoodman" but also the bitterness of "it's just a memory now, it's time to move on".
I have to wonder: am I playing Minecraft again to truly make new memories with the game as I had told my best friend from high school? Or am I playing it to try to re-create those fun times I had now 6 months ago? Time has passed so quickly,.my days are blurring together, I couldn't even remember if today was the 2nd or the 3rd until I looked at my phone. I've locked into a schedule/routine and now time goes by quickly since work usually goes by relatively smoothly and honestly it feels pretty quick going through those hours every day. I feel like it was just yesterday that it was pay day, when in fact it was 2 weeks ago and today was the pay day for the next cycle.
I don't know if I should really be writing all of this, but I've already gotten this far, and I don't want to have the last however many minutes I spent writing be for a waste. I know I need to move on and like yesterday's post says, to just know that it's okay to miss the comforts and safety of the past. Nostalgia is a good thing, I think. It shows positive reflection on the past and brings about good memories. I don't think you could really have bad nostalgia. That wouldn't be nostalgia then, right? I don't know my definitions exactly.
I guess at the end of the day, I just gotta keep on moving forwards because time will never stop nor slow down for me, and I just have to adapt. Maybe it's not good, but I don't care so here I go: a small piece of me is still holding out a hope that I can restore the friendships I once had. Mainly the two friendships that really got affected by my poor reaction in February. Not only with Sophia, but also with Dan too. While I know that sometimes people are only in your life for a short while and then they leave, I can't imagine that such good friends, even such best friends, like Dan and Sophia are truly out of my life now. I know I've hurt them, and I know I don't deserve their friendship. I've shown them and myself my true colors, and I need a lot of work.
Maybe it's this pandemic that's driving me a little crazy. I mean I am making friends and good times with my coworkers, but that's as far as my relationships with them go. It's just work, and after I leave or I clock out, I don't talk to them until I see them on the clock again. Maybe I should make more of an effort to be friends outside of work?
Anyways, I guess it's not really the right time to try to reach out to either Dan or Sophia. I don't know if I'm ever supposed to reach out to them again. I guess the only way to know is to start and keep on praying about it. And then leave the rest to God to tell me what to do.
Wow, this post went from nostalgia over a video game, to memories that are connected to said nostalgia, to I don't even know what happened in the past few paragraphs. But I guess I should leave it here.
One final note: I know I said I don't care anymore who is reading this blog, but I hope that all that I wrote isn't pushing too much information on you or being too forward. Since I have no idea who you are, I just hope that this gives you an insight to how I feel today, after 2.5 months of social distancing and I don't even know how long since reduced hours and face masks/coverings. It's getting to me, and my mental strength is starting to fade. I am exhausted and I want comfort. Maybe that's why I feel so strongly about the past friendships because they provided me comfort when no one else would. I guess if you are one of the two aforementioned friends, I'm sorry, I miss you. I can't exactly prove that I've grown or matured or anything, so I don't expect you to let me back into your life. But I guess all that I want to say is that I hope that we are on good enough terms that we can share these moments and memories together and remember the good times we had.
Okay, I'm done.
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