Repetition, Rewound
02:17 May 18 2025
Times Read: 17
Lately, I’ve been waking up a few minutes before the alarm. Not because I’m eager to start the day - far from it. It’s more like my body has memorized the rhythm and doesn’t see the point in pretending anymore. No groaning protest, no dramatic rise from bed. Just the quiet acknowledgment that it’s time to start another identical day.
The motions are automatic: coffee, screen on, volume down low. I don't need to think about what comes next... YouTube opens before I’ve even consciously decided what I want to watch. The algorithm knows me better than I care to admit. Familiar voices fill the air. Set reviews, market speculation, tier lists, salty recaps. Magic, chess, theory. The same topics, rewrapped a dozen different ways. It’s not exciting, but it’s something. Background noise with just enough familiarity to feel like company.
I keep tinkering with the game store idea. It’s never completely stopped. I wouldn’t call it “planning” anymore, it’s more like ritual. Sometimes I sketch out the layout again, just to see how I’d shift the shelves this time. Other times I’ll pick colors for the walls or design loyalty cards I’ll never print. I’ve designed it's logo a dozen times now, each one fitting for a different version of the same dream. None of it will happen. I know that. But building it in pieces, privately, gives me something to do with the part of my mind that still wants to make something real... and maybe that’s enough.
The rest of the day is a slow cycle of distractions. I’ll play a couple of games of chess. Most of the time I win, sometimes I don’t, though it doesn’t matter. The real satisfaction isn’t in the result anymore, just in the clarity of the process. One move at a time. Pure, self-contained logic. If only life worked the same way.
Magic: The Gathering still has its grip on me in that quiet, patient way. I build decks I never sleeve. Brew ideas I never test. Watch gameplay videos of formats I don’t even play. It’s not about winning or even participating anymore - it’s about observing the shape of something I used to be immersed in. A memory, kept alive through repetition.
And then there’s the reading, and the writing - the old, familiar loop. I’ll read the same paragraph more than once, not out of confusion, but because it didn’t land the first time. The words make sense, but they drift through me like smoke - seen, acknowledged, and then gone, leaving no warmth behind. Writing is even slower. I open a blank page, stare at it for a while, close it. Open another. Repeat. Sometimes a line makes it through, sometimes just a half-thought. Eventually something sticks, but it feels less like creation and more like residue... what’s left over after the effort has already gone stale.
Still, I save it. Archive it. Pretend it means something. Maybe it does. At the very least, it takes up space. And some days, that’s as close to progress as I get.
Some nights I sit in the dark for hours and don’t really notice until the screens dim themselves. Not sad, not brooding. Just… still. It’s easy to get used to a quiet life. It doesn’t hurt the way you’d expect it to. You just adapt. You find smaller ways to feel occupied. Smaller versions of satisfaction. Half-finished projects. Comfortable noise. A reliable loop.
I don’t expect anything dramatic to change. I’ve stopped thinking about when things will happen. They either will or they won’t. In the meantime, I’ll keep playing through the routine. The rhythm is familiar, even if the meaning behind it is faded.
Still, I show up. I create scraps. I imagine. I play. I think about a store that won’t exist and write words that no one will read.
And for now, that’s enough to keep the silence from winning.
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