Dreaming of a journey

At the start of the new year we make our resolutions for the coming one. Sometimes we have to let our fantasy soar freely. Doing just that I've been thinking about how it would be to take a few months off work and go off on a journey to visit a bunch of the friends I've made in my time on SL. Wouldn't it be lovely to be able to travel from city to city all over the globe and spend some time in RL with all those wonderful people I've met online? Off the top of my head I can think of people in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, France, Portugal, UK, US, Canada, Brazil, Singapore and Australia I would love to meet. Imagine what an adventure it would be. Of course I would keep some sort of journal of my whereabouts and share my impressions. I'm sure it would be an interesting read.

Pondering on this I started wondering about a few things though. I've met a few Belgian SL citizens in RL and it was wonderful to get to know them on a different level. But what if some people would not be comfortable with the idea of giving up the relative anonymity. Maybe for some the step from SL to RL would be too big. Who would want to meet up with this odd bird from Belgium let alone accept him into their home or spend time with him? Who would want to show me their town and a little fragment of their life? Would people turn out to be what I imagined them to be? How would things be different once I got back?

The more I think about it the more I would actually love to do it. I think it could be a very interesting experiment. Unfortunately unless I start playing the lottery and win the big bucks it's not going to happen. Apart from that it would of course not be easy to just pack up here and leave my RL behind for a prolonged periode of time. It never hurts to fantasise though.

Happy New Year to you all. May 2008 be a year full of inspiration, love & friendship.

Not so happy-go-lucky

I should not be writing this. I should not have the time to write this. I should be on my way to France for a weekend with friends and family. I'm not. I'm home, hungover and angry with myself for way too much whiskey last night. As you may have guessed this one is not about Loki. It's about the man behind Loki. Most of the time we are a lot alike apart from the looks and even there, some similarities exist. But, there are difference as well.

Last week was a rather turbulent one. I think I've managed over time to make Loki a nice, easy going, creative, somewhat flirty guy who lives his second life to the fullest. Last week however the differences between us blurred. Loki became the angry and melancholic drunk I sometimes am. I have always tried to keep that side of me away from him since it's a part of me I don't like and I don't particularly want to bother others with. Last week it shone through, bright and clear.

In a way I guess it was inevitable. We can pretend, we can disguise, we can make believe but in the end we are who we are. Loki is part of me, the better part I hoped but as it turned out he wasn't immune to my own bad spells. It's rather ironic it was actually SL spilling over into RL that brought all of this on. I always thought I could keep both lives nicely separated, but as many before me I have to admit now I couldn't.

For those of you who met with Loki's darker side I want to say I'm sorry. To all the rest who probably don't have a clue what I'm talking about I'll promise to clean up my act and make Loki the happy-go-lucky guy he always was again so hopefully you will never have to deal with me.