Exactly what’s been going on in my life over the last six years or so is between my therapist and I. The TL;DR version is, a divorce, the survival of a subsequent financially, sexually and physically abusive relationship, living in six different countries, finding my soulmate and a settling in a great job. The long version (of some of it) is here.
Cry me a river, dickhead, so what?
One of the things I’ve spoken with my therapist about a lot is intensity. Abusive relationships are extremely intense. Intense highs and violent, depressing lows. When I look back over what I wanted to achieve with TEH I think I can see some of this chaos reflected. The original intention of this blog was to motivate me to paint new armies and attend tournaments for new games, especially 40K. Then I wanted to improve my painting and have a crack at some painting comps. All of my aspirations were about competition and improving and measurement. Actually, I’m moving away from that now.
But this is gaming, the point is winning right?
Maybe. But let’s boil this down. I have heaps of hobbies, I really do. But I don’t do any of them to win. Here are a few:
- I play the violin because I love violin music and I enjoy the process of making the sound. I’m terrible at it, I’m likely to remain terrible at it but I don’t care, I just love it.
- I run because it’s alone time. Running means time without my ‘phone don’t run with my ‘phone, I don’t really run to lose weight, I don’t run to get faster. I run because I enjoy the pain and I enjoy being on my own.
- I paint (on canvas) to codify and express how I feel – it’s an extension of therapy. I’ve never explained what I paint and I never show anybody what I paint. Canvas painting can help mini painting, in my opinion (this is all my opinion) and I wrote about that here
So why give it large on here about wanting to go to tournaments and / or win Golden Demon? I genuinely don’t know. So there’s a big rethink and reset for year four.
Year 4, the manifesto.
Now that the toxic intensity has been removed from my life, I speak to my therapist a lot about how I’m a six out of ten and that’s exactly what I want. Less intensity, more room for emotional range and less pressure. It’s called transactional analysis. I’m ok, you’re ok. I can’t make you be more than ok by making myself less than ok and how ok I am is independent of how ok you are. It’s going to be like that between the hobby and I from now on.
I love painting miniatures because it’s a creative outlet, I love trying new techniques and I love the physical process of putting paint on models. I’m going to spend this year focusing on that (with some goals attached which I’ve already mentioned here). Once this hobby has become a part of “I’m ok, you’re ok” then I’m going to re-evaluate.
It’s all about the process and mediocrity for this year. Sounds fun!