Friday evening, June 29th, 2012.  Around 20:00 hours PST.  Staring the dark dragon in his ugly, mutated face.  Shaking.  Nervous.  Scared.  Anxious.

Heroic Ultraxion.  Sure, one of the easier encounters in Dragon Soul on Heroic mode.  Heroic nonetheless.  One mistake could wipe the raid.  And it did.

I died.  Several times.  Fading light required a heroic will, and then Hour of Twilight came and I missed my assignment.  Splat.

Death is jarring to me, even though I know it isn’t permanent.  It stings, especially if I make a mistake that affects the outcome of people I care about.  For example, I was in a BG the other night, and I Disengaged off a cliff and died.  I laughed, it was so ridiculous.  I didn’t have any real attachment to my activity, I was just killing some time and looking for easy XP.

Heroic Ultraxion, however, involved 9 of my guild members, my friends.  They depended on near-perfect execution.  5 times we wiped.  During progression, pretty normal.  And I’m sure there were more wipes before I was there.  But one wipe, while I *was* there, was my fault.  I went splat.  I got a brez and the rezzer went splat right after for some reason.  We missed the kill by 1 Million HP or so, around 1%.

One.  Percent.

We tried one more time, and I had near perfect execution, despite my nerves and shaking.  I missed not one fading light.  However, I hit Dispersion early and was about to go splat to Hour of Twilight.  But I called it out.

I’m not sure what saved me.  Maybe it was fate.  I think it was a Pain Suppression.  But I lived, barely.  We secured the kill.  Heroic Ultraxion fell to Eff the Ineffable.  And in that moment, I became heroic.  I had killed a few Firelands bosses on Heroic with some of the Twittermumble crew, but never a current raid boss.

Until Friday.

It was such an amazing feeling, one I have experienced more recently in my life.  The feeling of accomplishment, of vindication, of overcoming adversity.  As I overcome more adversity in my mind, I am able to overcome more adversity in my actions, including in-game.  Doing things I never expected I would be able to do.  Such an amazing feeling.

Am I heroic?  I’m getting there.

What happens when you beat a game?  What happens when you come to the end of the road?  What do you do when right ahead of you is nothing but the unknown?  What do you do when you don’t think you’re strong or brave or good enough to journey forward?  What happens when you don’t have a choice?

Then what?

This story starts on Friday, when I was asked by some Guildies if I wanted to do Dragon Soul.  Not LFR.  DS 10.  And I was asked to heal.  Needless to say, I was hesitant.  Yet I agreed to do it.

Agreeing to do so at work perhaps was not the wisest choice.  On top of work related things and personal things, I was now wrought with gaming things.  I did not know any of the strategies on normal, just LFR.  I did not have the gear to heal, let alone any practice with it within the past year.  I thought I was over my head.

I am in over my head sometimes.  At least I think I am.  If you didn’t know, there’s a lot of things going on in my life, some I’ve discussed, some I have not.  What’s said is said and I won’t rehash it, but I did want to point out that many readers reached out to me by what I had written, and for that, I am truly touched, thankful, and grateful.  My point is that I wonder if I’m taking on too much, and if I can even handle what things I have laid out in front of me.

Yet there is this desire within me, one that I haven’t felt in years, to push the envelope, to be outside of character as it were.  Trying new things, meeting new people, forcing new attitudes, and trying to have a more positive outlook, despite what my feelings are and what my brain is trying to feed me.  I mean, I went to a local gaming shop to look into Magic tournaments.  That’s something I haven’t thought about in over a decade, since I was in high school.

There comes a time for all of us, where we are faced with the unknown, and I chose to take it on Friday, in the form of an internet dragon.  I died on Zon’ozz for some reason.  I think it was the black ball thingy.  Other than that, I was told I did fine.  I was told my DPS was adequate on two fights that I DPS’ed, and my healing was good on the fights I healed.  More importantly, no wipes and we had fun.

I got “Destroyer’s End” on Exlucis, my main.  I’ve been playing since 2 weeks before Burning Crusade launched.  I have never defeated an end game boss, let alone while they were current.  Saturday night, I did.  It was exhilarating, inspiring, and fun.  It was the end of the game, so to speak.  I mean, sure, I could do heroic modes, but that’s not really my cup of tea.  I mean, sure I’ll try them, but I was content with LFR, and now that I have an end game title, I’m kind of at an other crossroads.

Then what?  What do I do?  I can level an alt, which I am doing.  I can make an other Exlucis on Horde side, since I loved it so much over there.  I can work on my League skills some more.  I can work on new hobbies, like taking pictures and Tumblr-ing them.  I can do a lot of things.

There’s no right or wrong answer here.  I can literally do whatever I like, within reason.  This extends into real life as well.  I’m at a point in my life where I will be facing some tough challenges, and there may be some wipes, but one way or an other I will soon be done with my challenge.  I may obtain a title, I may not.  But once I’m done, I’ll be faced with a similar crossroad.  What will I do?

Time and time alone will reveal the roads that will open when I’m done with this challenge.  I’m sure to have setbacks.  I’m sure to have depression bouts and anxiety attacks.  However, if days like Friday are any indication, those things can evaporate.  Even if for just a moment, I can move beyond life’s many obstacles, as well as my own struggles.  I can take down a dragon, earn a title, and wonder what’s next.

This is probably not up to my normal standards, but it’s late and I really wanted to get this out.  Day by day, little by little, I move on.  I know that for sure.  And again, thanks to the support of my readers, followers, guildies, and friends, for helping me move on to the next “what’s next” of my life, whatever that may be.

One of the things I love about WoW is the versatility it brings.  Some would argue against that point, but think about it; if you’re bored with your spec, you can change it up and try a different role. You can even roll a different class.  If you’re bored with blacksmithing, you can redo your professions and try something like engineering.  If you’re bored bashing bosses in, you can bash people in.  If you’re bored fighting, you can fish or hunt treasure.  In Mists, you will be able to fight pets.  The possibilities aren’t exactly endless, but they’re pretty vast.

League is similar in that if you’re bored with your item build, you can change it up.  You can change up the roles you play, the champions you use, your talent build, and who you ban in ranked games.  You can even try Treeline or Dominion (my preferred maps).

Life is not a game.  It’s easy to change things up in life, sure.  You can get a new job, you can move, you can meet new people, try new activities, etc.  It’s just that easy.  Is it really, though?  The answer is no.  Change is hard.  Change is scary.  It takes time, effort, money, and patience.  Trying new things usually results in trial and error, which leads to frustration.  Looking for a new job requires patience, luck, and resolve.  Meeting new people requires boldness and vulnerability.  Moving requires a boatload of time.

Life isn’t easy, I guess is what I’m getting at.  Changing anything in your life is exciting, but also scary, in that there are real life consequences to your choices.  Some are good, and lead to good days.  Some are hard, and could lead to frustrating days.  Not to mention that some changes are out of our control, like the discovery of a medical condition or the loss of a loved one.

I am conflicted, readers.  I am at a bit of a crossroads in my life, and there are many changes and choices I am faced with.  I have been crippled by anxiety in the past, because I would have rather not made any changes.  However, recent events have somewhat forced my hand to make changes, else face dire consequences.  I am making myself vulnerable, taking away my safety net so to speak.  I’m learning to foster genuine relationships, rather than just project my fears onto others.  I’m learning what’s personal enough to share and where to draw the line.  That is my main source of conflict.

I don’t know much about anything.  I look at most of my readers and most people I follow on twitter, and they’re all accomplished.  I get jealous because of my age and where I am in life.  I get mad at myself because I *chose* this life.  I could have accomplished anything but I wanted to goof around after high school and play music and learn to be a person I never was intended to be.  Connecting with WoW players and Twitter peeps has given me an in to become a person that people could like, and it gave me an avenue to do what I’m passionate about, which is writing.  I love writing music, blogs, poetry, and short stories.  But my work is so scattered I’m afraid to share it at the consequence of my work being less than popular.

It’s also personal.  My work is very personal because I know myself best, even though I hardly know who I am at all.  I’m trying to learn who I am, who (and what) I want to be, and what I want and need to be a happy, constructive member of society.  I can’t live my life being depressed, anxious, and suicidal.  I don’t want that.  Nobody wants or deserves that.  People are cared about.  I am cared about.  You are cared about.  People care.  That’s what makes this whole community thing great.  We have our differences, our cliques, etc.  At the end of the day, though, we are all human and we are all caring and cared for by our friends, and basically our WoW/LoL/Twitter family.

So yeah, this is kind of a random post for me, but I wanted to check in because I am learning to not be afraid of being too personal.  At the same time, there are things going on that I don’t necessarily want to share at this time.  My tone lately on Twitter and in game has been a bit more reserved, and it’s felt rather lonely.  However, I think at this time that there are just some things I cannot share.  I will say, though, that now more than ever, I need support and friends to help me through this tough time.  This is where I learn who I can count on and who I can’t.

If you are at a crossroads, be encouraged that you’re not alone.  There is always a light at the end of the tunnel, and there are always many varied roads you can take to get to the ultimate goal of happiness.  You can be encouraged that friends are there to help you along the way, in game and out.  If you’re burned out from WoW or furious at the unbalanced nature of Darius (DON’T EVEN TRY TO ARGUE WITH ME), change it up!  If you’re burned out from life, don’t give up, try something new.  You can do it, we can help.