Second Life: my ten (and counting!)

Ten years. 120 months. 521 weeks. 3,653 days. It all adds up to a long time. For me, on this day – December 5th, 2016 – it means I’m marking my 10th anniversary since re-entering Second Life (I’ve previously dabbed with it, but had wandered away).

Every year on this date for the past three or four, I’ve look back over my time in SL. Each year that gets harder to do because really, there’s only 12 months of “new” stuff to go over each year – the rest is a re-tread of things already said. But still, ten years is ten years, so pardon me if I ramble for a bit.

Perhaps the most surprising is that I’m actually writing about the fact that it is now ten years since Inara Pey burst forth onto the digital scene as I decided to give “that Second Life thing” another go. Little did I realise just how much a part of me would enter her – and  indeed, how much she would become a part of me. Back then, I re-entered SL With A Purpose, and determined not to be a wanderer looking for a role-play home. That purpose may now be a part of my virtual past, but it was enough to encourage me to stick with SL, meet like minds, make friends, explore and, eventually, to start writing about Second Life. And so the snowball started rolling.

Of course, there have been many ups-and-downs through the last decade, both in terms of SL and personally. With the latter, there have been a fair few times when I’ve felt I really should just quietly put everything back into inventory and silently slip away. With the former – well, I’m not going to rehash the good or the bad; we all have our opinions on that! Suffice it to say, Second Life continues to roll (and sometimes creak) forward despite all the proclamations that The Sky Is Falling along the way. My one passing regret is that I couldn’t earn L$250 for every doom-laden prediction which has appeared in comments on these pages over the years 😀 .

But all that aside, I continue to do what I’ve always enjoyed doing: logging-in, meeting friends, exploring, taking pictures, writing, and trying to understand more about what lies behind the curtain of this incredible world in which we invest so much of our time and energy.

I’ve no idea what lies ahead for 2017. Again, being honest, there was a time when I’d targeted my tenth anniversary as the point at which Inara would quietly bow out of Second Life; but plans have a habit of changing as time moves forward, so I don’t see that happening any time soon (touches wood!). Frankly, it’s hard to think of a day where I’ll get up without a thought about Second Life, the friends I have here and what the day might bring when I log-in.

Anyway, I’m not going to ramble on. Instead, I’ll finish with a few words of thanks. These go to everyone who has passed on rezday congratulations via blog comments, Twitter and IM, and to all of you who give you time to read and comment on this blog: you are genuinely the one reason I keep writing. Thank you, especially, to Caitlyn, for making the last 15 months so much fun throughout all our adventures and expeditions; and thank you, Linden Lab, for providing us all with this digital playground to share with one another. Long may it continue!