I’ve been tired since the summer. Perhaps longer than that. Tired of deadlines, mostly, and projects and people that go on for too long. It feels like a sentiment from a bygone era when our work was finished as soon as the game was finished. Now there’s a concept of games as a service, meaning continued support for a game beyond its launch date. I understand if that’s the nature of our business now but it’s exhausting. I like things to end. I feel stretched thin when they don’t. Which is ironic because I deal with the feeling by eating and sleeping. I’m probably at the heaviest I’ve ever been.
I’m due a vacation. I dislike summer and I dislike the holidays. I may just take all of December off. I want spring again and for deadlines to be far off in the distance.
I went out and felt better. Watched a movie in a movie theater, felt better. Went out again today, a Sunday, and felt better. I thought it might be nice to live and/or work in some high-up place. A skyscraper, but if it were all by itself somewhere so I wouldn’t have to cross through city to get to it. A mountain retreat. There was a trailer for Doctor Sleep before the movie I watched and you know, I bet the Overlook Hotel had a nice view. Or the Great Northern Hotel. If I travel this winter, maybe I can look for a place with a waterfall. Someplace with a view. Does Niagara Falls have hotels around it? Seems a shame if it doesn’t. I’m gonna check. Maybe just go and find out when I get there.
I think about my grandfather a lot in these last few months. I last saw him when the Alzheimer’s disease really had a hold of him. He could barely walk, needed help for everything. His many children divided the duties among themselves. It’s supposed to be good that one has a large family to care for them but now I feel that it was a whole bunch of people allowing him to lose his dignity. We’re human beings and we place so much emphasis on basic human dignities, but they didn’t give my grandfather his dignity. I don’t know what else they could have done, but I can’t help but put myself in that position and I don’t want to live like that. I would rather die than proceed into decline. I’m young I guess, maybe attitudes change, but it really haunts me. You can’t imagine the look in his eyes. He looked confused, sad, embarrassed. It makes me sad to remember my grandfather that way. I feel guilty for thinking of myself when I reflect on my last visit with him. My parents haven’t indicated how they feel about this subject and it feels like a undue burden on them to talk with them about it. It’s all feeling heavy on my chest.