Filling my Cup with Tears

Not nearly as depressing as it sounds.

Though in order for a cup to be filled, it needs to be empty. Lately for me, things have been overwhelming, taxing, depleting. Like I’m managing, but I feel like I’m barely treading water instead of swimming or floating.

I spent a ton of energy completing the last things I needed to release Llama and the Gods, which is so exciting. But I need to regain and rebalance my energy now that it is out in the world.

I am at the point where I’m too tired to do certain cleaning or extra tasks, but I’m still stressed out because they’re not being done. It’s harder to get up in the morning harder to go to sleep at night because I don’t want the next day to come, and evenings offer some moments of quiet or creative expression for myself (when the three-year-old sleeps, that is.)

When I’m at home, I always feel that there is something more important I should be doing, like cleaning and upkeep of the house or caring for my children or caring for my spouse before I can think about doing the things for me. It never feels like the right time or that the time is justified to be spent on it.

But there is always time to hide the korok.

I have an adorable stuffed korok that looks like Makar from Wind Waker (though it might just be a general korok from Breath of the Wild) and though it spent a short time sitting in my bedroom, now it has a much bigger role in our household.

Anytime someone finds the korok hiding around the house, they have to hide it somewhere else. We don’t announce it, we just quietly move it. Occasionally, someone will bring up “I haven’t seen the korok lately…” and then the last hider might get to brag a little for their excellent hiding spot. It is a fun thing to do. Even since Wind Waker came out, I’ve loved the koroks. I’ve made a few variations of art of koroks, and would like to make more. They are just so fun!

Check out my Korok paintings here: Practicing Korok Painting

I’ve played Zelda games my whole life, and they are up there in my favorite games. I even challenged myself over a period of a few months to beat all the Zelda games leading up to the release of Skyward Sword in 2011. I succeeded.

Recently, my daughter wanted to start a Zelda game. I was showing her all the different options (we have we have access to almost every single Zelda game at the moment, not including the variations of Hyrule Warriors, Four Swords Adventures, or some of the really obscure older ones for non-Nintendo systems.)

List of the games I have access to play and on what systems.

• The Legend of Zelda (Collector’s Edition GameCube; Switch Classics)

• The Adventure of Link (Collector’s Edition GameCube; Switch Classics)

• A Link to the Past (Super Nintendo; GBA; Switch Classics)

• Link’s Awakening (GBA; Switch Remake; Switch Classics)

• Ocarina of Time (Collector’s Edition GameCube; 3DS, Switch Classics)

• Majora’s Mask (Collector’s Edition GameCube; 3DS, Switch Classics)

• Oracle of Seasons (GBA; 3DS; Switch Classics)

• Oracle of Ages (GBA; 3DS; Switch Classics)

• The Wind Waker (GameCube; Wii U; Switch Classics)

• The Minish Cap (GBA; Switch Classics)

• Twilight Princess (GameCube; Wii U)

• Phantom Hourglass (3DS)

• Spirit Tracks (3DS)

• Skyward Sword (Wii U; Switch)

• A Link Between Worlds (3DS)

• Breath of the Wild (Wii U; Switch)

• Tears of the Kingdom (Switch)

• Echoes of Wisdom (Switch)

Technically, she had started Ocarina of Time on the 3DS when she was way too young to actually play it without getting frustrated or, in her case, scared of the boulder that was going to crush her. But now at 10 she’s chosen to start with Tears of the Kingdom.

I pointed out to her that Tears is a sequel. Breath of the Wild is the first one, but she didn’t care.

Watching her play through the beginning and the tutorial sparked something in me. I hadn’t actually beaten that game; I beat Breath of the Wild on the Wii U and I gotten close to the end of Tears of the Kingdom, but then had stopped. Why had I stopped?

I can name all the video games I have started and have not completed.

The list is ever growing, and it causes me stress anytime I think about it. The most stressful one on it by far is Elden Ring because it’s been so long since I played it that my muscle memory is fading. When I pick it up to start again on the boss that I’m stuck on, I have to re-learn the strategies of the game itself. Continually dying takes its toll on the psyche.

Tears of the Kingdom isn’t like that, though. It’s not necessarily hard, it’s just massive and while I was never worried about being a total Completionist in these large Zelda games, I still wanted to get the most that I can out of it and enjoy it.

So why did I stop?

I looked at my last save and realized that it has been over two years since I last played it. Time is a wild concept because I can think about the game and there are certain moments that pop out to me like it had just been the other week that I was playing it, not over two years ago.

I loaded up my file, got my bearings, realized I only had one of four sages left to acquire before moving onto what I’m guessing is the endgame quest line. Nearly completed.

On the one hand, with a game this massive, there is a certain part of me that wants to delay completing the main storyline so I can experience the side quests and increase my hearts and my stamina so it made sense that I was lingering and not quite completing all the tasks right away. But that gap of time was so big… but it was also 2024 when I stopped.

2024 was the year that my migraines first really decimated my life (alongside with my continuous flareup of Ulcerative Colitis and the months long process of finding a medication that would keep it under control.) UC is bad enough on its own, but the migraines are what really impacted my video game playing.

I’ve always had headaches, but nothing as bad as what started. I’d feel nauseous, needing to lay down in the dark and quite, ice pressed against my head, piercing pain behind my eyeballs or in my temples. Tylenol did nothing, and I’m not supposed to take NSAIDS because of my UC. After hours of pain, I’d break down and take ibuprofen anyway… and sometimes it still wouldn’t get rid of the pain.

I love video games. I love cozy games, JRPG’s, Tales games. I love Zelda games, and challenging games like Dark Souls and Elden Ring, but any games that required mental focus and visual attention were suddenly off limits to me with my new illness of frequent migraines. I would sit down to play and 20 minutes later be feeling the twinge in my head and the nauseous feeling that signaled the start of a migraine.

The reason I stopped playing Elden Ring initially was due to the birth of my son in November 2022. It’s really hard to care for a newborn and try to play a punishingly difficult game that you can’t even pause. But the migraines of 2024 prevented me from getting back into it.

At the beginning, I didn’t have medicine that would help. My primary doctor had me trying sumatriptan; first 50 and 100 mg variations and it just wasn’t the right stuff for me. It took towards the end of 2024 and seeing a neurology specialist where I finally started seeing relief. Relief came in the form of monthly shots and finding the medication that helps stop the migraine when it’s starting. Rizatriptan.

But it took time for the shots to kick in to prevent some of the migraines, and during that time it was much easier to avoid anything that was a trigger than try to play a game only for it to trigger a migraine. I already had to be on the computer all day at work and I really wanted to start taking my writing more seriously, so any time not at work I would use up my computer mental capacity writing.

Video games got the cut.

I deemed them less important than the other things, but the fact remains that they are still a form of entertainment that I deeply enjoy and I’ve been missing it.

So I started playing Tears of the Kingdom again. I went off and helped out the Gorons and got my last sage awakened. Now I’ve been ignoring the main quest line and completing side quest trying to get outfits from games past, and trying to find that one X on an old treasure maps in the depths that I just can’t seem to get to and… I’ve been having fun.

It’s a lovely stress relief, and I can do it with my family while they’re watching something else, or we’re each playing games together. There is still a balance between taking care of my needs along with raising my children and taking care of their needs. Everything needs to be prioritized, but the truth is there just isn’t enough time in life to keep prioritizing everyone else’s needs and putting mine last.

So after posting this, I’m going to go grab the switch and complete a few more shrines, or find some koroks. Ya-ha-ha!