12 MAR 18

That’s how we write dates in the Forces.

As you level up a character in World of Warcraft, you make your way through many storylines. From levels 40 through 50, closer to the beginning of the ordeal than the end, there are two stories that mean a lot to me. In one, you ride with the caravan of a travelling werewolf saleswoman (she doesn’t sell werewolves; she is one) and her two paladin companions (one an elf, the other a dwarf; they call themselves the Paladin Pals) through a wasteland infested with the undead. In the next, you help a researcher as she attempts to combat the corruption of a generation of black dragon eggs by dark magic.

The quests in these stories are at times mildly funny, and at times sort of emotionally affecting. From an objective point of view, though, they’re probably about as forgettable as any others in a video game whose genre lends itself less to storytelling gravitas than to doing its very best to keep you glued in place with mindless, repetitive virtual labour until your eyes melt. I don’t know why these episodes in particular mean so much to me. At any rate, I’m approaching them on a new character for perhaps the 30th time, and I find my heart swelling with the comforting warmth they’ve brought with growing insistence since I first played them in my junior year of high school.

Almost eight years ago.

I finished basic training about three weeks ago now. Some part of me wants to be surprised that I never wrote anything through those five months, but I know it’s been a while since I was a person who writes a lot, and anyway there wasn’t really enough time at any time to stop and collect myself. I don’t know how much I’m legally allowed to write about it, but even that amount is probably more than I actually want to. It was difficult. We marched a lot. We didn’t sleep a whole lot. We exercised. We struggled, and suffered, and we loved each other such that only friends forged by basic training can. Sometimes we were outside.

And now here I am, Second Lieutenant Yan (I have a military rank! In real life!) of the Royal Canadian Air Force. I live more or less a normal life again, only now with more money than I know what to do with — In recent memory, after all, I was a 23-year-old bus boy. I go to an office every morning and sit at a desk, exactly the fate I joined the air force to avoid, only it somehow doesn’t seem so bad now. I play video games and I read history and I exercise. Plus ça change.

Only now I’m doing all those things in a new place. I’m told I just missed the worst of the town’s legendary winter, so that’s probably colouring my perception, but already Winterpeg, Manisnowba bids for my affection. The people and city are so alive in that way peculiar to smaller cities. There’s colour and fire and personality where Toronto had bright lights and glamour. Unfortunately, you can’t see very much of that colour or fire without a car, and I’m forced to avail myself of the less-than-comprehensive public transportation system. Sometimes I can get rides from an erstwhile Tinderella, but she makes sure to explicitly remind me of how humiliating the arrangement is wherever traditional notions of adulthood and gender don’t quite manage it on their own.

On that note, though, I did buy a car last week. I’m a person who owns a car now (in real life!) I’ll let you know when I’ve stopped reeling. Also the car won’t actually arrive for a month, so my friend gets to continue her fun for a little while.

Most of the time I feel like I’m unusually good at not missing things/people (bad at missing things/people?) It seems like I rarely look back or feel longing when I leave circumstances or loved ones behind, at least since that one time. Sometimes I worry this is a terrible emotional defect, but at other times I feel like I actually miss everything all the time. I don’t know. I recently texted my ex-ex a few paragraphs about how much I miss her, so that sucked. This is probably in no small part because I finally downloaded Speak Now and listened to it all the way through. That album will mess you up, man.

I guess when I really think about it these few weeks have been a period of immense change for me, and the near future will mostly be more of the same. I just haven’t really had enough time to catch my breath and collect myself. I bet when the adrenalin wears off I can look back and have a nice little moment of awe at how far I’ve come since the last time I was psychologically equipped to check.

For now, though, we press on.