Dealing with limitations

Like everyone else during quarantine, I’ve been trying to spend social time with my family and friends via video calls. We’ve used Zoom and Google Hangouts, Facebook Messenger and Roll20. And as you might have guessed by that last one, a lot of these attempts at interaction has been trying to role-play. It’s pretty much my favorite past-time and I can never get enough.

Except that my brain has decided exactly that: Enough!

Any time I’m on a call for more than five to ten minutes, I’m getting awful headaches. I’ve been prone to ocular migraines my whole life and while these headaches aren’t quite full-on migraines, they’re not as far off as I’d like. Shutting out the video or playing the audio through high-quality headphones buys me a few more minutes before the headache sets in, but that’s it. No amount of painkillers makes a dent, and the headache lingers for hours afterward.

So… I can’t play RPGs through video or voice chat. And during lockdown, that’s about the only way to play in real time. We were trying to keep a Vampire game going, and start up a Star Wars one to test out Snake Eyes. An old World of Warcraft friend proposed starting up a game, too, and I was so excited to try gaming with her! She lives far away, and even without COVID-19, online was my only option. But now I can’t game with her — probably ever.

To say that I was pissed about this realization is an understatement. I cried more than I’d like to admit and threw a temper tantrum that would have made 5-year-old me blush. I love gaming and this drastically limits my options until the pandemic is over.

But it is what it is. I need to deal with that. Being angry about the limitations of my body won’t change them. My emotions are to be expected and are natural — but when they’re done, I need to figure out what to do.

Unfortunately, that’s not a long list and mostly amounts to dealing with my new limitations. It’s largely emotional and mental labor, but that’s important work to do. Learning to accept and accommodate will be a challenge, but I’m sure it will be fine in the end. I still get to role-play with Aron, since I live with him. I’m lucky in that, and eventually this quarantine will end, then I’ll be able to meet up with people in person again.

Hey, playing RPGs is all about facing challenges, dealing with them with the tools on hand, and coming up with creative solutions! I’ve got practice with this.

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