Overwhelming Odds

I am a very sorry Warden.

To anyone who attended CanGames over the weekend and planned on checking out Killshot, I want to offer my sincere apology for canceling at the last hour and bailing on the con. Which brings us to today's topic. 

For the past couple of years, I've been mentioning some of the difficulties inflicted by the accident, but never went into details or hid behind the ongoing legal action to avoid getting into details. I think it was a way for me to avoid confronting these disabilities directly or admitting to weaknesses that have turned out to be a larger obstacle than I had anticipated. Or maybe I thought it would clear itself up in time and things would return to normal. Unfortunately, I have to admit none of those are the case and if I want to make this work, honesty is better than vague messages and there's still a chance this could happen again. 

Here goes. 

From time to time, about once a week, my brain experiences what I call "fuzziness" but that term doesn't do it justice. Basically, my brain has trouble connecting the dots and will blank out. For example, during breakfast this morning, I wasn't sure how to unfold my napkin and spread it across my lap. It wasn't a case of "Hmm, this napkin doesn't want to unfold," it was "Wait, can you unfold a napkin?" From there, my brain pauses as it ponders the possibilities of napkin presentation and enter into a mild state or torpor. There's a mild buzzing in my head, akin to the vibration of a pin dropping on glass. It's a feeling, I've been told, many epileptics feel during partial seizures. These are not episodes that come and go after a few minutes, they consume the majority of the day as I need to step away from anything cognitively strenuous or demanding and sleep until it goes away. Including game mastering and writing. 

Are they seizures? No idea. But whatever's going on up there isn't going away any time soon and now it's caused me to cancel my appearance at a local convention I've been dying to finally attend. That's a problem and I can't run from it. I need to establish a trusting rapport with my audience and that means admitting to all of you (and myself) that I have a problem. Another one, mind you, but that's my battle. 

There's a lot of risk mentioning this now of all times. Namely, the Killshot Reloaded Kickstarter. Theoretically (and this just be paranoia talking), such an admission could be grounds for someone to reconsider backing this project. Then that's the risk I'm just going to have to take because I'm more upset at the idea of disappointing someone who wanted to play my game in person than turning off a total stranger from far away. I have to trust my record and let my work - the end result - speak for itself. After all, this is a new edition of a previously launched and successful project. 

Where do I go from here? Forward. It's the only logical direction. For now, I hope this will bring a new understanding of my abilities and their limits as the next step approaches. Until then, this weekend's CanGames convention has been added to the List of Regrets and becomes another source of motivation to handle and overcome these difficulties.