Tortoise and the Fox
I've been taking a lot of time recently to work on myself. It's been a good thing, but I've had to make sacrifices in the short term especially around my hobby of competing in Melee.
I know I'm not exactly a serial attender, but I've cancelled plans for multiple tourneys I wanted to go to recently such as Basement, Stitched Up, DYSTRIL and the new Bham weekly Hold Your Horses.
It's kind of a painful act in the short term. I won't get to see my friends and test my mettle against them in honourable single combat. Fortunately I think the short term pain is worth becoming more myself in the long run. Drifting through life in a haze isn't exactly my ideal state of being, I think I'd just like to not have to manically do every all the things at once in the few lucid moments I get. I want to be able to enjoy a cup of char and tackle things at a consistent, sane rate.
I still want to compete, and I still play Melee every day but travelling the country every week and going to a bunch of tournaments is just delaying what could be real steps forward in my life. I really feel like progress is being made for once, so it's in my best interest to embrace what that might hold for me. The tourneys will still be there when I get back, barring some black swan event that blows up every Wii in the country.
It's difficult to change focus from something I enjoy doing so much. Melee is fulfilling in a lot of ways, especially in how it keeps my mind active on solving problems and gives me something to feel granular progression in. There are a million things to learn, and a million more problems and interactions to find solutions to. It really slots into my life in a satisfying way and it's brought me more joy than I ever could have thought possible, mostly from the amazing people I've met through being involved with the scene.
I've been playing melee for over a decade now, and when I think about it I don't think I will ever stop. I see players rise and surpass me, burn out and stop playing. But I am still here evolving at my own slow pace. I feel like the tortoise in that proverb, I don't think I need to explain it any deeper. I like to think I'll still be destroying n00bs with my nasty climbers when I'm 70, and it'll be equally as funny that still nobody knows the matchup.
On the note of characters, I've been playing mostly Fox recently which has been challenging (and frustrating). I'm having to contend with aspects of the game that aren't required or are just plain bad to be thinking about as ICs. Some things are completely different, like over/under-shooting. With the climbers it's mostly about using varying length wavedashes with walks for accurate callouts and baits, but Fox has to do this with dashes and running which feels almost bizarre and otherworldly. It feels like I'm an expert snowboarder who has been given their first ski's and pushed down the black diamond slopes. It's a familiar situation, but I'm not using the tools my hands and mind are accustomed to.
As I play I'm finding more of these stark differences, and it makes me feel that more people could benefit from stepping out from the box they put themselves into, and never really dared to venture from. Personally though I could probably benefit from having the doors to my box barred for a while, considering the number of characters I've mained so far...
At the moment of writing I am sat drinking hot chocolate in Sheffield train station, waiting for my first real therapy session with someone who I actually seem to gel with and trust. I haven't talked about it to many people. I'm scared, which is something that even less people know, but I think that means it might just work. I've been afraid to face my struggles for a long time. It's going to be hard, but I know I'll be alright in the end. This tortoise knows something about what it means to walk the long road, and that sometimes the longer path is where we find an appreciation for this beautiful crazy life.
