"I ᴀᴍ ɴᴏᴛ ᴏɴʟɪɴᴇ ᴇɴᴏᴜɢʜ ғᴏʀ ᴛʜɪs sʜɪᴛ"
Procrastinating on my essay in the library, I log into Howrse. Time to delete all the useless promo mail Howrse sends me--but then, I pause to read one.
"The merge event returns with cat images as “ingredients” on the board. Combine them to create more advanced ones and to collect prizes. Visit the event’s gift page to familiarize yourself with all the possible gifts and combinations required to obtain them.
Throughout the event, you can collect divine fragments and open Golden Fleeces to win Yvain, the new divine horse from the series of Grail horses! Merge two Level 8 ingredients to get the new Cat-sith companion item!"
Yo, what? Like, what are you even talking about? I am not online enough for this. I am not Gen Z enough for this. What do you meeeaaannnn the merge event returns with cat images as ingredients on the board bro???? I understand all of those words separately but like what??? This is too much bro I am at my limit. I am at my limit bro. I can't do this anymore.
"The Inexorable Passage of Time"
Some of my horses are now boarded in my EC through the end of June 2022. When that day comes, I will have a bachelor's degree. I started playing Howrse (on another account, back when the only server was International) when I was in elementary school--I made my first account, Arabreeder, in 2008, I think. And I'm now in my final year of university?! That truly is wild--how the passage of time works. How much has changed in between now and then--how much money I regrettably have spent on passes, how many hours spent BLUPing and trying to be a top breeder, how many hours spent AP farming, pass farming, voting on GA coats... What we do really is an integral part of who we become, isn't that true? The small things we do every day become pieces of our whole selves.
Time marches on, waits for no man. The only thing we can do is treasure those we have, when we have them. At dinner with your friends, spending time with family, studying in the library, walking down a city street in the rain. Looking an an especially beautiful sunset, shuffling through fallen leaves on your way to class, blossom-studded magnolia branches bowing gracefully to a spring breeze. The season's first ephemeral snowflake floating tenuously to the ground. Soak in brilliant June blues and flat November greys and everything in between. Take a moment to breathe it all in and savor it deeply. Let yourself sink into the atmosphere of here and now, because once it has passed it will never return. What's happened happened. What will you do tomorrow? Where will you go tomorrow? What will you remember? What do you want to remember?
"Pushing the Limits (of Creativity)"
Man. I log in to see if my Bradford cows are ready to be harvested (because that's all I do nowadays) and the first thing I see is a fᴜcking kawaii schoolgirl horse???? with fᴜcking thigh-highs on its legs? Bro WHAT lmfao?????? I'm legit crying rn, you literally made a Japanese schoolgirl horse in sailor fuku and thigh-highs. You gave a horse absolute territory, holy shit.You guys have exhausted every single divine horse idea imaginable. You've scoured the earth for horses from mythology. You're covered everything single wild horse breed to ever exist. And now, you turn to modern Japan. To make a sushi horse with raw shrimp on its back. To make a kawaii horse. かわいい馬を作ったなぜぇぇ I...I don't even know what to say anymore. I miss being 10 years old and just stroking Xanthos every day in the hopes of getting a HOP, which was the top item on the market. I miss when the top GP was like, 1700. The inflation in the game is insane too. At this point, I only log in occasionally to see the devolution of organized society and the growing gap between the 0.01% and the rest of us. Do the top players even like horses at this point or is Howrse basically just the stock market now? Insane. Absolutely insane.
"Monte CarlOWL"
okay lowkey i feel like howrse was the original evil lootbox game that goaded kids into literally gambling their parents' money away, like how is the titan's challenge or horn of plenty not a literal casino game? isn't howrse based in france? didn't the EU ban lootboxes from other video games? i lowkey feel like the world would be a better place if the EU banned chance-based black market items from howrse lmao
"Love"
but where would we be without love? without pure, raw, love for the stranger sitting across from you on the 6am train into town or the girl who takes your order at the coffee shop or the runner you wait next to at the stoplight? who can live in this world without loving, or being loved?
love for your family, love for your friends, love for those who could never love you back.
breathe in, breathe deep, feel every part of your body, the physical reminder that you are here, you exist, you are loved. drink deeply of moments with your friends. savor the sweet, heady flavor of laughter in living rooms at way-past-your-bedtime. walking out of a movie theatre into a thursday afternoon as clear and bright as a picture. rainy day drives to the airport, the steady drum of your heart matching the relentless rhythm of windshield wipers struggling against the deluge (i'll miss you, but have fun. fly safe, and i love you). hot summer evenings languishing in the heat radiating from the asphalt like a warm bath, sitting on a bench in the park with soda cans and a family-size bag of chips, watching the world go by while time is stopped.
where would we be without these moments? without the experiences and memories and emotions that make us who we are? i am made up of everything i have ever experienced, and everyone i have ever loved. i am myself because i was here and you were there.