(I wasn’t allowed to post this as a status, but I feel strongly enough about this to find some other way to post it. Sorry in advance for it being so long. I had a lot to say)
Got really reflective today. Didn’t mean to do that.
One thing I thought about was how… inevitably, this forum will grow. And change. And more kids will come in. More people who are younger than even I will arrive. And they’ll change the culture. One day, the forum won’t be the same because time changes all in the end.
Is it weird to say… I’m okay knowing that? Because that isn’t now. And I don’t think of RGT as my home. Nor do I want anybody to think of it as theirs either, because that isn’t healthy.
I had a place online during my teens that I called my “home”. A place I trusted even more than my own parents and family. And it was beautiful. But… time passed. Things changed. People came and went. Friends became enemies. Some friends stayed and splintered away with me. One of those friends became my partner. I said things I regret. I did things I regret. I clung onto people whom I didn’t want to lose. I lost them in the end.
When all was said and done, I came to a small realization for another man, but an important one for me: I was happy with what I had. My friends. My people. My partner. I didn’t need fame, nor fortune, nor exposure beyond my wildest dreams. I didn’t want that. I wanted a small little group of people I could trust. I wanted a nice home, filled with my hobbies and my loving partner and a pet cat and possibly a child of my own someday that would make us a family.
It’s years later now. And I come to RGT. It’s my first time in over a year and a half being outside my small online bubble. And I struggle at first to know how I should balance myself with RGT. But, right now, I see it as a compliment to my life. A warm place, like a tavern in the middle of the woods. It’s not home, but it’s a place you can go. Waffles is on the piano playing a tune for us all, Spike is in the back somewhere, and there’s tables on tables on tables of folks talking and discussing and vibing and doing all sorts.
It won’t be this way forever. But, unlike when I was a teen… I’m okay with that. I’m just happy to be here. In the now. Alive. Because I’d rather be living than dead.
And I’m saying that in this time in which we have a torrent of bad news and bad apples raining down upon us all, so you know I mean it.
I raise a glass, with whomever has read my little ramble, I raise a glass high to RGT!
To RGT!