Dear Internet,
Ever play the timed word scramble game, Word Crack? Pretty easy concept: You have two minutes to find words out of 16 random letters. Like Scrabble, some letters have double or triple points and words can have the same point advantage. You can play against friends or random strangers. Lately I’ve been playing against random opponents and always losing. I get, do to the fire of my brain, picking up GRE words was difficult enough but I was consistently losing by 200-300 points. Per game. Are my opponents Rhodes scholars or winners of the local spelling bee? What gives?
What gives is you can spend a few bucks and get coins and you use these coins to get boosters. One of the boosters is “wisdom” which will show you three possible words per wisdom card. These word are, of course, big money words. So I spent a few bucks, used my wisdom cards, and sure enough I was beating people by a few hundred points.
So this is legit cheating. We’re not encouraged to actually use our brains but use short cuts to make win the game. Once i figured out the accepted cheat process, I have lost interest in the game.
This is a metaphor for something and when I get that figured out, I’ll get back to you.
I had another round of loss today and I’m in the midst of processing it. I cried my hiccuping, nearly wetting myself, big sobbing tears; which lasted on and off for better part of the night. But through all of that, what kept me from having a complete breakdown was hope.
Sometimes the only thing keeping me going is hope, even if the percentage of that thing occurring is a tenth of a percent, there is still that chance. I play the lotto ever week on the hopes that I will win the Powerball or the Megamillions, dreaming daily of how I’m going to spend that money. Do I believe I will actually win that prize? Logically? No. Emotionally? As long as there is a chance to get my castle in Scotland, I’ll keep playing, no matter how minute.
When the waterworks slowed to a trickle, I went through and momentarily romanticized the loss. If only I had done things differently. If only I didn’t say those things or intoned those words or or or. If only a million times now and a million times over.
If I’m honest, I could see this coming and I shouldn’t be terribly surprised. Recounting recent events, I see how the loss broke down and went the way that it did. The crying jag, the gulping of air, the deep groves of scratches in my heart, I did some deep breathing exercises, got up and took a shower. I may be extremely sad and heartbroken, but at least my legs are shaved and my hair clean.
But not all is destroyed for after all, tomorrow is another day. And as long as that sun rises, there will be hope.
xoxo,
Lisa
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