Winter Hibernating

We've had a few multi-day blizzards so far this year. The snow is piled so high that it's difficult to get around; the sidewalks are buried and the roads are icy. The salt ruins your shoes, and there's no point in wearing a nice outfit. So I've mostly been staying under my duvet, drinking tea and consooming media.

The time is perfect for an overly long JRPG (Sekiro is on hold), so I've been playing Tales of Arise. I haven't played a game from this series since Tales of Symphonia on the Gamecube. The main heroine has a curse where anyone who touches her feels extreme pain. As a result, she's very withdrawn and a little mean. The main hero is open-hearted and optimistic, and he has a curse where he can't feel pain. I thought that premise was so cute lol so I decided to play. The game feels so easy after Bloodborne and Elden Ring and the writing is cheesy shounen anime stuff, but it is cozy and there's a big world to delve into. My boyfriend has also been showing me how to play chess. Somehow I've gone my whole life without ever playing or learning it.

More importantly, he's actually not my boyfriend anymore, because we got engaged on my birthday a few weeks ago. Although we can't have a wedding for quite some time, the act of having proposed has given me this sense of peace and confidence. I think I have this chronic, underlying paranoia that my partner secretly doesn't care for me, is only using me for the time being but too cowardly to tell me that. I guess because that is exactly what my first boyfriend did to me for five years. And of course many people say "I love you and I want to stay with you, I don't see why the state/piece of paper needs to be involved in our love, my words should be enough." Maybe most people are honest when they say that, but there's also no penalty for lying about it. And when we're young we're so confident we can tell the truth from a lie when we're under the influence of love and all the hopes and expectations fogging up our minds.

Marriage is risky and expensive and divorces even more so... so, for me at least, knowing that someone thinks I'm worth that risk means a lot to me. I feel more comfortable opening my heart and investing in the relationship. Although I don't think I would have accepted a proposal from anyone else I know. But I think he is a rarity—giving up all my other possibilities to be with him feels like the obvious choice, I hadn't even considered saying no when he proposed (I hope he feels the same way).

I know there is a chance it could blow up in our faces and I'll look back at this page in horror, but I'm okay with taking that risk. My friends and I recently watched Police Story 3; there's a scene where Jackie Chan hangs off a ladder attached to a moving helicopter, among other things. If you never took chances because you feared a potential bad outcome, I think Jackie would tell you that's no way to live life.

Recently I've been making him (my bf, not Jackie) some assets for a game he's working on. After it's finished we've been talking about maybe making a hentai game together. If we're married that would make us a mom and pop hentai studio. Can we qualify for small business subsidies?

This time of year, the sun is just rising on my way to work. The light makes the snow glitter. When I hold my hand out against the snow and the lake, the ring looks really pretty.