More on Minecraft - some time later

Just thought I'd pop in here again after it had been some time since I've been playing Minecraft. So, I started a Minecraft YouTubec channel which I thought was pretty spiffy. I've even gotten about 13... or so subscribers? Most of them organic, a few of them friends and a few family, but I really haven't been getting many views or anything, so it's still growing. I only started posting minecraft videos about...hrm... two months ago. But the reason I wanted to type today is because I had a really rough weekend. I have been posting these videos online for a little while, pretty proud of all of the hard work and creativity that has gone into not only having to record, but narrate, edit, add in music, and come up with building things and trying to think of interesting topics to do that might make me stand out from other YouTubers. And I like it, and it's fun for me and relaxing and I've even had my first troll, even if it was a brief shrug - it was still a COMMENT and I was so happy! It was Easter weekend and my mom and my in-laws were over, and yes, I'm a 42 year old something who's been playing and posting Minecraft videos, but dammit, I was PROUD of those. My Mother in law complained about the sound. Well, yes, I do tend to speak kind of quietly... Okay, that can be improved with a better system over time if I get more viewers maybe it'll be worth adding in some more money to it...right? I was bothered of course, so it started to weigh on me and I'm like - I can fix this easily, right? I have a good microphone, let's work on getting this fixed. So I started researching good mixers to possibly help my sound...sound better, you know? Headset on, watching the YouTube video and my Mom was sitting on her laptop behind me so I thought it was all hunky-dory, she'd be entertained on her own thing. But then came the nagging - "I'm sure whatever that is isn't THAT important..." And it just really hit me because for FORTY-TWO years all I wanted was my mother's support in everything I do, and no matter what damn hobby I pick up she's never happy for me. I used to draw and write and she'd never hang it on the fridge or put it in a frame. It would get shoved in a drawer or box somewhere. I would make ornaments for the Christmas tree and they'd get put on the "kids" tree but not her shiny white and blue tree. For a time I worked on writing novels but no one wanted to read them unless I shoved it in their faces. I worked on an online store for awhile and she was sort of supportive of that but I felt critized for everything. So....yeah... I got really upset, the "straw that broke the camel's back" or whatever you want to say - but I just broke down. I hid in the closet for an hour and NO ONE CAME TO LOOK FOR ME. Eventually I had to pee and I climbed out again and then my husband was like "oh, you're back." SIGH. I'm fighting on and making the most of my videos though. I just posted 16 and 17 (scheduled for future release) and I'm feeling pretty content that I'm still making better videos than some YouTubers out there. It's just that I'm so bummed that no one from my own family or close friends bother to watch what I make or care about it the way I do. Maybe...maybe someday I'll find some friends who care the same way I do.

Focus on Me - pt 4 - Minecrafting into 2021

Wow...it has been a long time since I've written in here, hasn't it?  All the way through 2019 and through part of 2020 I was pretty much glued to my blogs, trying to get something updated once a week or so, and trying to help my mental health by getting things out of my head an on to "paper".

Now, it's been about six months later and things are, well, more or less the same.  About the same time that I left off of the blogs I started into the game of Minecraft.  It was a free solution to me wanting to create and decorate and explore the world around me (well, free in the sense that I only had to purchase the game but not the materials, that just took time).

I feel like I really need to dig deep into my new obsession with Minecraft.  Here I am, about to go into my 42nd year, and I'm obsessed with this digging, building, and battling game.  At first I played it only on the weekends, spending time with my friends on a shared server and eventually only my husband and I were on there for the most part until then there was me.  My friends still helped me defeat the dragon, still worked on their builds, but eventually they moved on to other games and doing other things.  We'd exhausted pretty much all there was to do - especially since they weren't into building and designing as much as I am.

And obsessed...yes, my evenings were spent exploring and building maps, finding beautiful scenery in this cartoon landscape and it helped me forget about how 2020 sucked.  About the fact I could no longer play D&D with my friends in person, how I barely left the house but to occasionally go to the grocery store or the park to walk.  

In this world... I was free.  I could hang out with my friends (when they were there) or hang out with the NPC villagers which is what I spent a lot of time doing, coming up with small stories and going on adventures to build the most amazing things I could think of.  Of course...this was before I started watching YouTube videos putting anything my mind had come up with to shame thus far...but that's for another time.

My house recreated in Minecraft

When I did discover all of the other builders out there I realized quite quickly that I wanted more challenges.  My husband tried to start up a modded game, and he played with me for a few days, then dropped off each time we'd start up something new.  I'd press on, enjoying every moment until I had my own single player "X-Life" game where I managed to max out everything and had a wonderful village all on my own.

Since then I've played around with other resource packs (the picture above is MizunoCraft16 with some Ghoulcraft thrown in) but I'm pretty happy with how close I could build a replica of a house I live in.  It's not perfect, but since I had the constraints of what blocks are available and not having a whole lot of extra mods...it's not too bad either.

I've thought of doing some other things with this new found obsession, but, overall, I guess my anxiety makes me push a way from going streaming or trying to do other things like that.  Is it bad?  No, absolutely not.  Not every Minecrafter needs to be a Twitch streamer...or YouTuber, but I do like to show off what I've created and I'm proud of the things that I've done with my time even if they aren't physical creations.

Unfortunately, I feel a lot of the time that the push I had two years ago at this time, when I'd lost my job at the craft store and moved into attempting crafts full-time for the summer of 2019... it feels very far away now.  I'm definitely a different person than I was then.  I don't feel like the same excited, bright-eyed, "let's do this!" kind of person I was then.  

But you know, dammit, even if people don't appreciate the time and effort I put into this game... even if they don't seem to care that I want to show them what I've made because it's not tangible...well, screw it.  I AM PROUD of it.  I find relief in these things, no matter how strange it might seem.

And I'll probably keep up with it for a while longer, because that's what brings me comfort.