Confessions of a 60 Year Old Gamer
Gamer is a Total Stretch But I Do Love Video Games
My daughter is really what you would call a gamer. I play games on my iPad daily, but they most certainly are not the kind gamers play and stream on youtube and Twitch. I’m more of a Match 3 kinda gal, simple puzzles that take no more than one finger to operate. No game consoles or controllers for me!
Even as I try and write this I am torn because I was playing one of my current obsessions, Harry Potter: Puzzles & Spells, when my mind starting writing this essay. So I put down the game and started writing, but dammit, I have ten minutes of free play, and I’ll be damned if I lose it.
Mmmmmmmmkay, I’m back. I lost because this particular game lets you get to within one or two moves of winning when you run out of lives. Then they want you to spend your coins on 5 more lives. They bring you right to the point of winning and snatch it away! It’s like being brought to the edge of an orgasm and having your partner get up and turn on the TV! At this point I am up to 50 more lives, and I am still not giving them my coins. It’s the principal of the thing, which is a phrase I grew up hearing uttered by my grandmother. I get it now.
Video games have been part of my life since they came on the scene. I am of the Pong generation, that simple game that was released by Atari in 1972. We thought it was THE SHIT back then. You could control a paddle of sorts with a dial and hit the little square ball, basically playing a game of ping pong on a screen! Who needed real ping pong tables and balls when you could play it on your TV screen. Simple graphics, as in there were none, and basic blue lines on black screen. But it was THE SHIT!
Video games now? Oh mylanta! The graphics and movement and color and story and incredibly hard controllers that this Pong girl cannot handle! Push X and A to do this, toggle to the left only to do that. Too much for me, I just do not have the coordination. My daughter convinced me to play a beautiful game called Genshim Impact with her, me on my iPad and she on her iPhone, iPad and gaming PC. Now that is how gaming is done! And also she has way too many electronics, but we know who’s fault that is. Moving on.
I must confess, even without using a gaming controller, I still couldn’t keep up. Battle that monster, fly around without dropping like a booty listening to Snoop, forage for hidden items and food and whatever else you’re supposed to collect. I finally just ran around the place site seeing and avoiding the monsters. I found my happy place even if I stopped progressing in the game.
I have found a game that soothes my soul in a way no other game does. It’s called Stardew Valley, a farming simulation game. Do I want to be a farmer IRL? Heck no, but it sure is fun playing one on my iPad. The thing is, playing video games is much more that just playing. For many it is a way to calm an anxious mind, to focus and gather thoughts. To drown out the sound of death and destruction that is our world. A way to find just a little peace amongst the cacophony of chaos.
I run around my farms harvesting crops, pet my animals, chop down trees, visit with town folk, and tend to my husband and kids. I make wines and cheeses for a living. If I need to get out some aggression I’ll visit one of the mines and kill a bunch of slimes and ghosts and skulls and bats. Sometimes they kill me, which really pisses me off. That’s OK, I’ll bring bigger bombs next time.
Instead of letting my intrusive thoughts, which tend to be of the catastrophic variety take over and send my mind cartwheeling off the proverbial cliff, I play games among other things. It’s a form of CBT or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for me. When you’re neurodivergent you have to find what works for you. And video games work for me.
So, as this post menopausal body continues to astound me in the places it can ache, and my mind keeps dropping memories like they’re hot (second Snoop reference in one essay!) I just keep doing what I can to stay sane and healthy. And I even play a few word games to keep the vocabulary sharp. Though I did forget my cats name the other day. . .