I have been struggling with insomnia since the pandemic started, but in the past few weeks, it appears to have gotten much worse. Yesterday, after three successive nights of poor sleep, I was feeling so dragged out that I took a sick day from work, and I spent a significant chuck of the day in bed.
Very early this morning, as I was sitting dejectedly in front of my computer, thinking about my quixotic endeavour to leave most of my small army of Second Life alts to other people via my will, a song lyric popped into my head.
As I written before, I have learned that my subconscious tries to send me messages through whatever tune is running through my head when I am thinking about something. And this morning, at the very moment I became aware of it, the song lyric was from a 1984 song by the Canadian musician and singer Luba: “Let It Go”:
Let it go, let it go
—Luba, “Let It Go” (1984)
Let it free your head…
Hmm. Well, that particular message from my subconscious seems pretty clear. And it made me realize: it was time for me to let go of this crazy notion that somehow, every single one of my Second Life alts is going to find a second home when I pass away.
The bitter truth is, most of my creative work in Second Life over the past 14 years will simply vanish when I die, or when Second Life shuts down, whichever happens first. Fighting against that fact is futile. I just have to accept it, and stop bargaining.
My weird, obsessive little hobby has been something that I have turned to, time and again, over the past 14 years, whenever I wanted to shut out painful, messy reality. I have turned to creating, styling, and endlessly shopping for fabulous freebies for my female and male alts when I was depressed, anxious, or upset. It was my coping mechanism, especially during the current coronavirus pandemic.
But I have, sadly, reached the conclusion that my compulsive virtual shopping and styling of avatars is taking time and energy from other things that I need to take care of in my life.
And so, once again (and yes, this is not the first time I have done this in the 14 years I have been in Second Life), I will be scaling back, and even deleting a few avatars.
It’s time. I need to let it go.
UPDATE Dec. 10th, 2020: Today I bit the bullet, and I deleted eleven avatars. I have updated the following list accordingly: Leaving My Second Life Avatars to Other People Via My Will: An Updated List of Avatars Available. I do plan on deleting more over the next couple of weeks.
UPDATE Dec. 15th, 2020: After some consideration, I have deleted another seven avatars, updating the list linked to in the previous update. Again, I don’t need to keep them, and I think it is highly unlikely that anybody else would want them, either. It’s time to let them go.
I’ve been sorting out all the stuff in my inventory by the year I bought them, and now I’m at a point where I can start to cull all the things that I’ll never wear or use again. Doing this has made me realize how much time — and money — I’ve frittered on impulse purchases over the years, as well as freebies and group gifts.
I’m being good and not doing any SL shopping this month — my only expenditure so far has been a donation at the Christmas Expo, plus topping up my rentals. No point in adding to the clutter while I’m cleaning up!
During my clear-up, I’ve come across notecards and pictures from the past, and in only a few cases have I felt the need to keep them for posterity.
And kudos for finding that song! I love this kind of random discoveries, or rediscoveries. 🙂 One of my recent ones was ‘Never Let Her Slip Away’ by Andrew Gold, a song I’d remembered fondly for years but couldn’t remember the title or who sang it. The video is a bit weird at the beginning, wasn’t sure what to expect. Sadly, because of the ubiquity of ‘Frozen’, I bet that song has been buried deep in the search results. 🙁
I follow your blog you do wonderful job. keep Celebrating you do self care self love.