i regress

even before the holidays, i wasn't quite feelin' wow. i do admit, though, that the Wrath of the Lich King expansion has been absolutely fantastic and i enjoyed the questing and phasing and pace of levelling to 80. but there's something missing this time around.... something that i can't quite put my finger on....

my mominlaw stayed with us for 3 weeks for the holidays. that's a long time. for some reason, i felt self-concious about playing wow with her around. like wow is some kind of drug habit that i can't let her know about! is it the martyr in me? sometimes i'd log in, get to the character screen, and then log out, suddenly remembering that i had a kitchen to clean up or tile to scrub.

well, mominlaw departed this morning and i will indeed miss her. she's a great lady and not a bother to be around. now, what about wow? my reason for not logging in is driving to the airport. why am i still not playing wow?

the bottom line is that i kinda suck. i can't think of any other way to say it. this blog used to be more interesting. and now it just.....sucks. i tend to overthink much in my life and maybe this is just another one of those things. but i can't help feeling like all the raiders in my guild deserve better players than me - my own team deserves better than me. i just /fail all over the place now.

part of me wonders if the shift from healer to tank was a bit catastrophic. after healing with two healers for so long i wanted to try something new. i am terrible at dps so tanking seemed like an interesting new challenge. but i had no idea that the hardest part about tanking, for me, would be the dependancy on others and their dependancy on me.

i have always been oblivious to the gearing of tanks. i think most people are, actually. and now that i have some experience with it, it makes sense since it's not very exciting. i think i always took for granted the effort those particular people put into our tanks - the enchants, the crafted items, the farming of instances, the planning. i don't think i was prepared to be the recipient of that kind of attention.

as a healer, i kinda took care of myself. i crafted my own gear, farmed/looted what i could but i didn't really realize that whatever healpower i lacked was compensated for with the stats of our tank. basically, the better the tank, the better the run. that rule of thumb doesn't really work for any other class/role. and for someone like me who has always faded into the background, quietly healed from afar, reacted to damage rather than kickstarted the event.... well, i feel out of my element and awkward.

so now i'm inexperienced among people who are skilled and don't suck. tanking has turned out to be a much bigger challenge than i ever anticipated since, for someone like me, it takes a lot of godamned nerve. the upshot of all of this weirdness is that when (if) i DO manage to get over the self-inflicted anxiety i will have accomplished much and the rewards will be greater than anything i'll ever loot in-game. unless i really do suck. and well, then i'll have to be confident enough to step down and hand over the job without crying. too much. :D