The Big Bad Blogger Challenge

One of the blogs I read is by Alicia Chenaux. She is a prolific blogger!!! And she has thrown out a challenge to try and get people to update their blogs more often. Every day she will suggest a new topic for people to blog about. I think it will be fun so I'm accepting this challenge.
Her topic for today is "Why did you decide to blog about your Second Life?"

I was never much of a computer person. Much less a computer gamer. A friend told me about Second Life which she was obsessed with. I decided to give it a try because I liked what she told me about it. Especially the fact that she didn't describe it as a game so much as a virtual world that you can do with what you want.
I installed it and logged on for the first time. I loved creating my avatar Sorcha. It was amazing to be able to look anyway I wanted to look. And I loved the fantasy of shopping. The clothes! The hair! I wandered around spellbound for the first couple of weeks at all their was to do and see in this magical world.

After a while, I noticed a change in myself. I've always been extremely quiet and shy and always a bit uncomfortable in social situations. I had a fear of being myself with people. Yet the anonymity I found in SL was allowing me to overcome these fears. I was more comfortable talking to people and getting to know others. And this was translating to my RL too! It was these new experiences that made me want to start a blog. I always loved blogs and I'd found some very interesting ones about SL. I found it was good for me to record my new experiences and thoughts and adventures. It helped clarify them for me and also helped to exorcise any sad feelings. The friends I met through my blog were the biggest blessing to me.

I fell in love in SL. I met the love of my life. That certainly gave me a LOT to blog about. It was insane. I thought I was going crazy. How could a love found in a virtual world feel more real than anything I'd ever experienced? There was a lot of fear and doubt and one day in a panic I deleted my whole blog. I miss it but it was all I felt I could do at the time to try and find some peace.

I ended up creating an alt and I got back together with my love as Astrid. I didn't blog though. Now I'm with him in RL and I wanted to blog again. Second Life taught me a lot about myself. And it gave me a lot too. Magic, love, creativity. I'm in my Third Life now but I hope to bring a lot of what was good from my Second Life into it!