SL, Second Life, provides the
perfect getaway staycation from CL, Covid
Life, though some people seem to have let it seep in here too. Not me
though, and anyway, vampires, which I am, don’t get Covid. Of course, I suppose
some of us vamps might have rabies, so we’re not so squeaky clean, although, I
am very particular about my fangs being well-brushed and razor sharp. I like a good
clean puncture wound, none of your shredding and tearing by me.
I just realised I been here over 12 years. 12 years! Actually nearly 13 now. That makes me quite elderly in SL
terms, here before mesh, even before sculpties, when it was just a totally prim-world and we didn’t look quite as lifelike
as we can look now. I still have my original avi too secreted away in my inventory, which is basically not much
different from me now, although now I hope I am much upgraded. I know it might
seem really boring to some to just remain pretty much the same even though I’ve
experimented too on and off, not to mention my mermaid form. I’ve messed around
with being a tree and a panther, to name just two non-human shapes, but I
always come back to me. What does that say about me? That I’m boring? Or
perhaps I’m lucky that from early on I been comfortable in my own ‘skin’.
Maybe that’s had something to do with my longevity here, why I’ve made
it this far and this long and still in one piece, relatively anyway.
Emotionally it’s been a roller-coaster up until recent years as if you’re not careful
SL can have a habit of getting under your skin and not always being the escape
from real turmoils you thought.
I’ve definitely outlasted many of my peers who’ve either left or dumped
their original avi for a new one. Also
those who drop in once in an SL moon, as in rarely. Sometimes I’ll log in to
find a message from some long lost name on my friends list from years ago, and
presumably I must still be on theirs. They are like ghost messages really, as
though they’ve been left on the answerphone from another time and hadn’t been erased.
They all mostly always say a similar thing, like, “are you still playing here?”, or, “just thought I’d join SL again”, and even when I reply rarely do I
ever hear from them again.
You
need to be a bit schizophrenic to be here, to add another you to the many you’s
out in RL. Like for me, I’m a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a student, a
volunteer, a model, a photographer, a waitress and probably more, so my SL avi becomes just another facet, one
always with blue hair, but one totally down to me and not at the whim of others
or society.
© Anan Eebus
