Putting Things in Boxes

For those who haven't been following my every movement (shame on you) I ran a website dedicated to miniature wargaming. It got very very popular and ran for many years, but the fickleness of the Google algorithm updates did a lot of damage to me and it eventually became more expensive to maintain--it stopped paying off.

Anyway, I've been playing miniature wargames since I was nine years old. My dad had stumbled on a copy of Wargames Illustrated and brought it home, and I was instantly hooked. The miniatures, the maps, the rules--I was in love. I have played and collected miniature wargames for decades, spending many thousands of dollars on this hobby.

But something happened when the website died (which happened about a year ago). I lost the love. I still get excited looking at minis, but I just don't care about it in the way that I used to.

I was afraid to abandon it because it's been not just a hobby but a part of my identity for most of my life. My bedroom has four floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that are filled with miniatures. And now they just seem oppressive. They're not interesting and they actively make me feel bad about myself because, well, it's like I've failed. And I don't mean failed with my website, but failed to be the megafan that I've always been.

I brought this up in therapy this week (I go to therapy and think everyone should go to therapy) and she asked why I didn't just box some of it up and put it in storage. And I had reason after reason, but eventually it came down to: do I want to give up on who I have been AND more importantly, does my wife want me to give up on something I have always been.

(This is not to say that I thought she loved miniature wargaming--she doesn't care about it at all. It's that I worried that I'd be disappointing her if I let my hobby go. Like, if she told me one day that she didn't want to be an artist anymore, I'd worry if something was wrong with her.)

So we talked about it. And, she was incredibly supportive of the idea, because she could tell that my heart's not in it right now. It may come back, but it's not there right now.

(She also expressed that she would love to have some of that bookshelf space in the bedroom.) :)

So the plan is that I'm going to (slowly) sort through all of my stuff and select the ones that are most important to me, and put all the rest in boxes.

For those in the know, I'm keeping all my Stormcast Eternals (from Warhammer) and plan to paint them. Everything else is going in a glass display shelf or a box.

I feel good about this. It feels like a good change. Writing has come back as a pastime, so it's okay to let something else go.