Love and Pixels

I try to be very guarded with my feelings about people in my life that I would love to have a future with. However, the man that I’ve fallen in love with almost definitely never comes here let alone pays $5 here so I figured I’d write about my experiences finding love again.

Over half a decade ago I stumbled upon a site called Twitch.tv. I found that you could watch most of your favorite video game speedrunners on the site. I spend a lot of my entertainment hours watching people slog through all kinds of video games, and podcast-style content.

This year one of my friends started streaming Star Citizen with her husband. They invited me along. I thought it would be really cool to spend more time with them as we were very close all those years ago.

If you’ve read my past stories you’d know that I lost my fiance Randy 5 years ago. I’ve been just barely staying afloat over the past half a decade since then. The world doesn’t stop just because you were dealt a blow. You can wither away, or you can stand up and say, “I can do this!” I chose to wither for a while.

One day my friend, Zandolza, approached me and asked if I had been watching one of his friend’s streams. I had honestly never heard of him before. He pointed me his way and showed me a picture of him. I felt warmth rush to my chest when I saw this man. All that stress that I feel about school, or things going on in my life melted away at that moment. My whole life I’ve never had that feeling not even with Randy. I’ll never lose my affection for Randy, but this is something new. It’s most likely because of all the effort put in by my doctors, and staying regular with medication.

Whatever it is that’s caused this feeling to swell inside my heart I’m eternally thankful that I am able to feel this way. I’m taking this slow as I can but It takes nearly everything I can do to keep from spilling all the affection at once and I don’t want to do that because I don’t want to come off as desperate. Though, I’m not sure whose opinion I’m trying to preserve by doing this. I want nothing more than to be able to go to him. I want to feel the warmth of his hand in mine.

I’m fully prepared to do whatever it takes to get to be with him. He lives in Canada, and I’m all the way down here in Texas. I’m currently practicing my French every night and reading up on Canadian history. I just don’t want to take too long to do this. I’m going to be getting a 9 to 5 after I’m done with Calculus. I want to save as much money as I can so that I can be with this man. I think I’m actually going to cry when I meet him in person.

I honestly feel like I’m on some sort of drug when I spend time with him on Twitch. All that stress just falls away. I don’t even have to be doing anything else. I could just watch him for hours.

We got him playing Skyrim, and he’s already put over 100 hours into it. I’ve picked the game back up too, and I’m going to try to 100% the game for the first time ever. It’s my way of trying to be closer to him. He makes me want to try as hard as I can, and do everything I can to get to him. I don’t care what I have to leave behind to do it. I can see it in my head one day we won’t be apart.

I know this is creepy but you have to understand the context. I’ve never felt this way, EVER! I try not to bother him because I just don’t want to become an annoyance but I’ll be there for every stream I can. Randy helped make me a better person for sure. I think I’m going to be able to take what Randy and so many other people have taught me and be the best I can be. I think about him and I feel this drive. I could work half the day as long as I knew that I could provide a better life for him.

What does this all mean? This verbal diarrhea, this manic rambling? I just want other people to know it’s never too late in your life to improve. If you improve yourself 1% compared to where you’ve been in the past it’s all worth it. You’re worth it! There’s someone out there for you! Don’t despair even when life hands you a crushing loss. It’s ok to let yourself be tilted after a negatively impactful event in your life. Just don’t stay down for too long. You don’t deserve that.

My final thoughts on loss and grief are this: If you are hurting because you lost something or someone you should be happy because the pain means that what you had was very important to you. Your happiness was caused by that person or event and the feelings you have from losing it are an affirmation of that. I, for once, am able to feel these things. This whole story is probably nothing groundbreaking to the reader but you know what? I don’t care. This one’s for me, and I’m glad to feel what I’m feeling. Even if it all collapses on me and it doesn’t work out it doesn’t matter. Nothing can take away the feelings that I’ve experienced. I’ll always have those memories.