And so the time has come, finally, for me to downsize in SL. Its not due to lack of enjoyment or even time. It is unfortunately due to my RL economic situation. Read that as "I'm poor." True, millions of Americans are in worse shape than I am. At least I have a home and the means to travel back and forth for my rl job.Though it is in fact that whole "driving/flying back and forth to the city thing" that means I have to substantially downsize my entertainment budget. At first I was overwhelmed and totally bummed about the prospect of making such a huge change in SL. I didn't log on for a couple of months after I made this decision just because I didn't want to deal with what I assumed would be a daunting task. And ofcourse, I wanted to avoid the emotional drain that was sure to come with closing a chapter of my second life that I had really enjoyed. I had decided that the best way to deal with it all was to be done. Just as I was sure I'd quietly fade away into one of those ancient avatars who status constantly reads "currently offline", my SL came full circle.
My rl friend D who is an avid SL'er in addition to being a super awesome person IM'd me saying she'd been thinking about me since I left for the business trip that took me away from our little circle of rl/sl friends. She said she'd been looking for me online in SL but didn't see me. I knew that old generic "hope all is well with you" tagline was coming and sure enough, there it was at the end of her message. I was just about to click the X in the corner when I noticed her post script. "hope all is well with you....looking forward to that time when you get over yourself <grin> come back and start your next adventure." And that's when it occurred to me, I'd been looking at these changes as an ending. When in reality it was just the beginning. Or at least it could be if I wanted it to because after all, what is the very first lesson you learn as a noob when you come to Second Life? Your SL can be anything you want it to be.
So after months of moping, I logged back in fresh faced and with a smile and went about making things as I wanted them to be, within this new framework of my economy. I sent quick "changes coming" IMs to all my friends and customers. I closed up shop on my store account which wasn't too hard given I never transferred my store after the change from Xstreet to Marketplace. I canceled my land rental to save on the 10K per week and then I did something I had forgotten that I used to enjoy in SL. I explored!
Check that. I'm still exploring and loving (mostly) the new bits and bobs I find every day on the grid. And in all that finding, the real treasure of the trip has been discovering that even in downsizing my budget for SL doesn't mean I have to downsize the fun.
