Day Seven

Today I'm thankful that my sweet husband and I have an activity we can do when we want to spend a little quality time together.

No, not that, although that's obviously another one.

The one I'm referring to started about six, maybe seven months ago. Ben and I hadn't been spending much time doing things together, and I was feeling a little distant from him. He's casually addicted to the game World of Warcraft, and even now spends most of his free time playing it. He also reads, follows the news online, and watches movies. It's not like he spends ALL of his time on WoW. And he always quits if I need him to do something, or if we want to do something as a family. But it is quite a bit of time that he's on there.

So six or seven months ago, I confronted him about it. I told him that I wanted us to spend more time together. He listened very thoughtfully, as he always does. Then, he made the suggestion that I might try some of the things that he's interested in. That way, we can do some of those things he enjoys together.

I have to admit, I was very dubious about trying WoW. It definitely seemed like a geek thing, like Dungeons and Dragons. I've always known my husband was a geek, but I don't mind because he's also extremely cute. But online gaming, marching band, the nerdy stuff my husband likes isn't my typical cup of tea.

But he had a good point. I needed to be willing to try things that he liked, and not just make him do the things I wanted to do. So, we created characters on World of Warcraft and started playing together.

For those of you unfamiliar with the game, it's basically like being part of a fantasy novel. You go on quests, learn magic, and gain experience that makes you stronger and better. You kill a lot of monsters, and sometimes win big items that help your character get even tougher. You can also get pets that follow you around, everything from cats to dragons to Christmas elves. There are different roles you can choose. You can be a Tank, who draws all the monsters' focus on himself so others can attack without being hurt themselves; you can be a Damage, who (just like it sounds) wreak havoc on the monsters while they're focused on the Tank; or you can be a Healer, regenerating everyone's health and trying to keep people alive.

For our first characters, Ben chose a Tank specialization and had me play as a Healer. I have to say, Healers have a hard time when playing in a group. You can be killing yourself trying to keep everyone alive, but if they die, all of the blame is placed on you. If you keep them alive, however, most of the time they don't even notice. Healers get very little credit for what they do. And frankly, there were times I would have been happy just to let the others get killed because they were a bunch of jerks.

So when we got stronger, Ben and I started doing some of the group quests on our own. He would go in and battle the monsters (keeping their attention off of me, because as a Healer I have very little armor and almost no way to defend myself), and I would keep him alive.

It was fun, but more than that, it was romantic!

We both read fantasy novels, and doing this together, it was like we were living one. He would defend me with his sword - he would even get genuinely angry when something came after me - and I would heal his wounds and help him survive.

It also gave us a way to spend time together when he was in Little Rock for five and a half months. We couldn't actually touch each other, but we could quest together, talk together, and feel almost like we were together.

It's still geeky, I know. But it's become something that makes me feel closer to my husband, especially when he's out of town. I genuinely enjoy playing, and watching my knight in goblin-made armor defend and protect me. And I'm grateful for it.

I guess I'm officially a geek now, too.