Yesterday I uploaded a YouTube video on the death of the character in my weekly Wednesday night AD&D game I play in on Roll20. You can read the other posts I have about the game here. There is a companion video to this article here.

One of the other players in the game commented on the G+ posting for the video. As I answered him, it hit me that it didn’t bother me about the character’s demise, as I am not really in the same place in my life to play a taciturn dwarf. While I can easily play a dwarf fighter, there is something about it that I am not in a head space that it feels like a go to character. It just isn’t the specific character.

In the last few months and especially the last few weeks, I have had a realization that I am not in the dark and cloudy haze it is too easy for me to fall into. I am generally more happy and satisfied with life, and far more productive personally and professionally than I have been for some time. I have made progress on other things, and not used my need to write for one blog or another or make a new video as a reason to avoid other things.

I am downsizing my stuff. Things I haven’t touched in years, and most likely will never touch except to move them out of this house. I’ve been divorced about eight years, had one relationship since, and a few dates via online sites. I don’t need that. I’m OK with being single (but still open to the right person). So much so, that I deleted my online dating profile.

I have greatly limited my watching of shows through the summer, and only watched a few movies on Netflix here and there, with only an occasional binge, instead of most weekends. It is AMAZING how much one can get done when cutting out shows.

While in the process of reducing the cruft in my life, I am focused on defining what it is I want and what personal projects really matter to me. I find that as I let go, that I am more at peace. In some ways, I would make a good dwarf or dragon hoarding stuff. It’s not like I can’t get in or out of my house, but I have so much stuff I haven’t really touched since my divorce, and some before.

This new perspective and attitude has subconsciously affected the type of characters I want to play. Part of it is my age. I’m in my early 50’s and my life-long worrying about what others think seems to be nearly gone. The, I’m not taking crap off anybody mentality – “Get off my lawn!”

I’ve also always wanted a long beard, so I quit cutting my hair and beard in late April/Early May. It was a lot of fun to see the reactions of people at Grand Con who hadn’t seen me in several months. If it weren’t for arthritis, I’d be braiding it. Perhaps once it’s longer I can manage it.

My demeanor and disposition is noticeably different and others at work and home have commented on it.

I’m just curious if others find this in their own roleplaying, if their head space nudges them towards certain character concepts, i.e. race, class, background, and actual presentation of the character via roleplay.

I’m avoiding adding a lot of new stuff to my plate. However, I have plans to add a planned amount of things, like playing in and later running a 5e game and running something at my FLGS. Before that, I will be adding more content to the blog and more videos to my You Tube channel. I got more memory for my computer so videos render faster, but my upload speed is now the bottleneck. My new video editing software defaults results in huge files, so I’ve got to get a better handle on the settings so I’m not spending two plus hours uploading a five minute video.

I’ve got opportunities to really grow my blog and YouTube channel and other social media. Getting my stuff “right-sized” for the life I choose to live will really make a difference.

I’ve got it figured out how to get out of debt and still go to the cons I want. Things are coming together quite nicely.