This Is Just Life

I began the Miles Morales Spider-Man game on my PS4 today, and I felt a bit guilty about it. First, I purchased this game last holiday season, and this is just one example of many where I’ve purchased games only to never play them, or play them months or even years later. Second, I began to play this game more out of boredom than anything else. I used to feel that boredom was some character flaw, that only uninteresting people were ever bored. But I was bored! So. Very. Bored. I had done my morning routine, and I just finished eating my lunch, and… I didn’t know what to do. I have a long list of tasks in my todo list, but none of them gave me a reason to feel excited about life. So I sat on my couch and I looked around my house, and I saw my PS4, a console I hadn’t turned on since last holiday season, and I saw the Spider-Man game, and I thought, why not?

And you know what? I had fun. I’m worried, though, that the enthusiasm I have for the game now will dissipate before I get a chance to finish it. I have started too many games that I have never finished because I had lost all interest in playing games. I was, and most of the time am, in work-only mode. Who has time for games? I sure don’t! I have to work. But it never used to be this way, right? All I wanted to do as a kid and teenager was play games. I had all the consoles growing up, and I had two younger brothers to play games with, and we had loads of fun. And now, I live alone, and I’m only really playing single-player games because I don’t have any friends who play games, and my brothers are doing their own thing, and so… I dunno.

Maybe I miss my brothers? Maybe I need friends? Maybe I’m not being hard enough on myself? Maybe I’m too hard on myself?

Sometimes I forget how old I am, and when I remember, when I really soak what that number means, and I realize who I am and what I have and haven’t done in life… I feel sad. I feel like I’ve been stuck at a certain age but life has kept going anyway, and then I wake up and see that yes, I am older, no, I’m no longer a kid, and god damn what have I done with my life? But then I have days where I’m dancing and inspiring the next generation and jamming out to music and life just feels fun.

This is just life, isn’t it? It’s messy, it’s fun, it’s heartbreaking, it’s delightful. Life is just life, and I need not feel so guilty about being bored or playing video games. Because hey, swinging through New York City as Spider-Man is fun as hell, and I want to get back to that feeling again.