A couple of weekends ago as Management and I slowly shuffled through a Target we passed by the videogames section only to be brought up short. For months I had been breezing by this section with the hope of spotting a Wii and on this day sat three in the display case. Three available for purchase. We stopped and stared.

“Just buy it!,” exclaimed Management with an edge of irritation in her voice, “For months you have bemoaned the lack of stock, extolled the virtues of its games, and basically acted like a whiny twelve-year old. So just buy the damn thing!”

Shifting from foot to foot I hesitated. I stepped forward only to rock back on my heel. Why did I want this again? When was the last time I actually played the consoles we already own? Making a quick calculation, scrunching my face up at Management I attempt to come up with the last time I fired up a game: fourteen months. Gaming has not happened in any shape or form in over a year. We have a Gamecube gathering dust, an Xbox which has been unplugged since before Gabriella was born, and a GBA which goes everywhere with me yet is never turned on and used.

So I stood there with my wife slowly rocking the baby in the carriage. I thought back on why I jumped into gaming in my late twenties and how it ended so abruptly. It was an escape when I needed it the most and like most escapist pursuits evaporates when the impetus moves on. Gaming kept my sanity during grad school but shortly after finishing I found myself playing less and for shorter periods of time. The first usurper was Linux when I decided to go full-time with Ubuntu 4.10, then it was the house, followed by the dog, the baby, then photography, and work. Life pressed in and squeezed things out leaving only the essentials, the people and things I love the most: family, reading, Linux, and learning.

The cliche is true: life presents choices but at times it forces the choice. My choice of Vi over Emacs is just that, a forced choice. Having been a longtime Nano user–its learning curve is like steep downward slope–I was never motivated to learn anything else as I could always pull it into something like Gedit or Bluefish to do something crazy like search and replace. My new job eschews a windowed environment and I found Nano’s quaint limitations to be powerful frustrations. My decision of Vi over Emacs was simple: crontab -e launches Vi. The decision was handed to me.

Like passing over Emacs not gaming doesn’t leave me wondering what I am missing. Standing in Gamestop with my brother-in-law yesterday while he bought a copy of Gears of War I pursued the collection of DS games. There were many that seemed fascinating and certianly looked fun but I found myself questioning when I would play them and how the cost of a DS and a handful of games would put a dent in my lens budget I walked back to wait in line with him.

When we got back to his house he hustled to the livingroom to play the game while I sat outside on his deck in the cooling evening. With my daughter on my knee I talked with my in-laws and the kid who lives next door about first jobs, first loves, and simple pleasures. My wife leaned over and asked I would rather go inside and play a few levels. No, I replied, I’m happy right here and now.