dolari | A Year of Second Life

A year ago, after some trepidation, I got into Second Life. A friend of mine I hadn't talked to in a while was there, and she'd convinced me I should check it out.

I wasn't too keen on going. I'm not a fan of roleplaying and in fact was very very very worried about going in. I'd had issues with jumping into virtual worlds, like Riven and Myst among others where I'd get lost in them and not really want to "come out."

My firt there was a blast. My friend quite literally took my hand and showed me around several of her haunts and sightseeing. She showed me everything I would have missed back when the only things easily found were sex shops and gambling casinos. In short (and my guide was very short), I got a guided tour of the best places SL had off the bat.

I lived in the Gazebo that was my first stop in the SL world for a while, I haunted the Nekama anime Sims, and after a while I felt more and more comfortable here. Less worried about getting "addicted" to the world like I had for Myst and Riven, and less worried about the role play aspects to let down my guard. I finally let myself be ME.

I've built myself a house, which became a cabin in a forest, then a cabin with pools, then a cabin with a campfire, and eventually a nature park (Celerio Sim, look for the Spanish tiled walkways on a hill). I eventually became involved (Well, not really became involved, but got really nice sneak peeks) at the building of an island, and, because of the way I was helped when I first got here, help out the newbies whenever I see them.

In that year, I made tons of friends (most becoming more than just an acquaintance seen once every week or two), used SL to get together with Emily (who was half a continent away) nightly, and, eventually, gained a family of three of the best kids a set of aunts could ever have (and their really sweet and downright loving parents)...which is amazing as I've always had a bit of an issue with ageplay.

I've invested a lot of time and effort into SL...and instead of feeling like it's wasted time, or a game, or just "something to make the evening go by" I felt like it's actually had an impact on me in the real world. Allowing me to express myself as I wish, having me meet new and exciting people, and seeing places that couldn't exist anywhere else.

And at the end of the day, I can still turn it off, and get on with my real life, and feel that my Second Life has really helped my first, unlike those hours where I stared at the pretty screensavers that were Riven. :)