Blizzard Almighty

It's been a long while since I've written anything here, but something caused me a little bit of anger the other day which led to inspiration for another post.  You need a bit of a back story though:

I was born in South Africa. My parents were not well off and I think that they did struggle with money a little. Anyway, one summer day in Johannesburg, my mum was waiting at the airport with me - my 5 or 6 month old self - for my dad to turn up. He never did. I'll not include all the information here as that's a whole other story to which I do not have all the pieces. Basically she was abandoned with a very small child. She did the sensible thing under the circumstances and returned to the UK where I grew up only really knowing a couple of my 'other' family - notably my aunt and my ouma.  Me and my father have been sporadically in touch and have met twice. Both times I have been overwhelmed with irritation.  I have my own son now - Markus. He is two and a half years old. I would like very much for he and his only grandfather to meet.  Recently I found out that my father was in hospital for an emergency operation to amputate a leg. I was a bit worried that he was falling apart. You see, he broke his back in a motorcycle accident 31-ish years ago.  The prognosis was that he would only live for another 20 years.  I started thinking that we will have to get to South Africa for a visit sooner rather than later and started talking to a few other family members out there - the ones who have contacted me more than my own father has.  I asked them to pass on my best wishes. I received the following from Nico (I'm named after him.):

"Buks and Annatjie said you were quite upset hearing about the operation! Was a bit of a surprise for myself! Due to bad blood pressure, my toes started going blue. The dr said it was dry gangrene, and they had to remove the foot. As there was  a metal plate in my lower leg, they decided to amputate above the knee. In my case it is not so bad, as I can move easier with less weight to lift! It is so wonderful to see Markus growing! You two have been blessed with a darling gift from God! Praying for you all constantly!"

That's the back story.  Why was I so enraged? Markus is a darling gift from God. He prays for us all constantly. Well. Isn't that lovely.

I have a weird set of beliefs that I don't really talk about - just take it as gospel (hur hur) that I can well understand a belief in a deity or deities.  Beyond that I have a healthy measure of cynicism and disrespect for organised religion.  So, what was annoying?  He prays for us all constantly.  As someone who, from the age of 6, has wondered why her dad buggered off, that's just great!  How about that time praying be invested in actually communicating what the bloody hell you were thinking and finding out what I'm actually like?  I think that that would have been too difficult.  Too tough.  But he prayed so in his own mind - literally - he has done *something*.

Markus is a gift from God.  Truth be told, Markus is a gift from Blizzard. A gaming company. More importantly he only came about because of my Guild Leader - Cheryl - and Tero's guild leader - Marcin (they were both working for Blizzard). That and our own activities - I am sure I do NOT need to fill in the blanks.

Before I worked at Blizzard I was on the 2nd of two shitty jobs working for shitty people. I had had a miscarriage which knocked me for six. My finances gave me sleepless weeks. I was horrifically depressed. My partner at the time was heavily into PC gaming and after several nights bored of watching him play I decided that I would try and find something to interest me, too. I went into a Game store, looked at the shelves, picked up a copy of World of Warcraft. This was 2006. It was my solace. There, everything was not falling to pieces. There were some fantastic people online and I soon found myself in an amazing guild.  After a while I was promoted to Guild Officer. From there I got chatting more to the Guild Leader and was telling her that I was thinking of applying to work as a GM.  She said that she would make sure someone checked my CV. Someone did. I got an email saying that they would give me a phone interview and then I had a live interview in the Cork, Ireland office. I got the job.  To cut a long story short, after a while feeling like a fraud - I'd never considered myself a gamer - I found a second family, I found my niche, I found myself. It sounds cheesy but I did. I flourished. I got my confidence back. I felt more like myself than I had ever been.  My previous relationship stagnated and then ended once I had made the move to Ireland and after three years I spied Tero looking wonderfully nerdy across the desk. Longer story short, we got together and Markus happened. I don't want to go too much into that time, but a tough decision was made on my part: I knew how much my mum struggled as a single parent but in the end I chose to take that risk. I'm glad I did. We took voluntary redundancy from Blizzard when Markus was one year old and moved to Finland: we had the ability to pay a deposit on an apartment and here we are.

Blizzard, specifically World of Warcraft - coupled with the help of some friends and our own damn guts - are the reasons we are where we are. 

When you praise or assign God's will to the things in your life you are removing responsibility from yourself. You remove credit, blame, responsibility and the need to be proactive about anything.

Praying everyday for something does *nothing*. Calling my child a gift from God completely takes any of my own tenacity and free will out of the equation. I am insulted.

That is why I am angry.  Now to put that into a slightly shorter version as a reply... urgh.