I found some “ambient” music on YouTube a few weeks ago — background music, really.  (You should really check it out … instrumental music for all tastes). Great for crafting or reading. I came across this one long track, Relaxing Fairy Music – Dark Fae/Soothing, Sleep, Peaceful. It’s kind of slow and mysterious, nebulous and a touch enchanting.

It makes me want to role play a dark faerie again.

As I talked about in a blog from 2012, What Is Role Playing and Can I Do It By Myself, 

Through the initial excitement of wandering through Internet worlds, I stumbled upon chat rooms where people typed to each other as if they were face-to-face.  Interesting.  I didn’t have to fess up that I was a 40-ish year old housewife/innkeeper … all I needed to do was make up a name and race and I belonged.  Can you imagine the doors that opened for a writing goddess like me?  Role-playing was like a video game with instant feedback.  I could write my own dialogue, fight with swordsmen, disappear or have flames shoot from my fingertips, all with a sentence or two. 

For those of us on every level of creativity (and I know that’s almost all of you!) there is something exciting of creating something with its own  charms and purpose. 

That’s the biggest reward of writing. But I digress.

I was a dark faerie named Dream Regret — half human, half fae. I was beautiful and clever and sexy. I could flirt as well as discuss strategy, chat with unicorns and trolls, or learn to hold a sword or javelin. I could get into philosophical discussions about the cosmos or the maturation of the Fae race or how to metamorphose into a dragon for a few hours.

It was all nonsense and it was all escapism. 

The really good players fed you dialogue as well as you could dish it out. Enemies fought with swords and laser beams. They lied, cheated, and proclaimed their love.

I miss being that clever. That alluring. That magical.

There’s something about reality that sometimes takes the shine off of your crystal dome. Nothing could be as intricate as what is in your head. Nothing as full of unlimited possibilities.

Nothing can be as complicated — or as simple.

The older I get, the more I crave simplicity. Simplicity in real life, complexity in creativity. I love the challenge of a hard-to-design pattern, a harmonious color scheme, or a biting slice of dialogue while in the Creative mode. But I also like to be able to drop the pattern and the color scheme and dialogue when I’m done for the day. 

I don’t like to deal with the complexities reality often brings along with it. Those challenges don’t fade with the sunset.

The days of creative chat rooms are over. I’ve put away  my wings and my long dark blue hair and headed down a different street, searching for creative people and minds and hobbies.

But I’ll always have a bit of Dream Regret in me. 

I’ll never let her fire go out.