Saying goodbye

As of this week, I am officially saying goodbye to EC, my Second Life home. I've kept my otherworldly presence there for nearly two years now (I registered January '07) but Second Life--like the first life upon which it is based--is never stagnant. It's time to let it go.

Honestly, I'm both sad and relieved. Sad because it had become such a huge part of my life: I met many friends and loved ones through EC, but also relieved, because it was also thanks to that place that I lost my oldest friend, ingo, a woman I love dearly, along with my other close friend Sjo. I was never really able to look at EC the same after that.

Still, there are so many treasured memories. The night I met Gill. My first apartment. Crazy conversations that lasted long after midnight.

The snapshots are full of McCabe, but I never saw myself as just an avatar (if anything, I referred to myself as a "pixelated person"). The bonds I've forged in SL have been real and strong, and have affected my life in a way I could never have anticipated--not just in friendship. EC gave me a home that had been missing from my real life for far too long. Despite my recent bitterness and discontent towards SL as a whole, I'll always be grateful for that. Second Life brought (and continues to bring) people close together; beautiful people who would never have had a chance to meet in real life, otherwise.

(Heh. You really do know "it's time" when you start waxing nostaligically in such broad strokes like that).

Anyway. All that's left is for me to pick up my things, handover ownership, and find a new place to set my home point (have to keep testing this UI somehow, after all!).