Birthday Cake

Rabbitcon #1: The Intervention

“I don’t really want to do anything,” was my reply.

There’s perhaps no more telling question about an adult’s mental state than “What do you want to do for your Birthday?” I was turning 38. And if I’m honest, I was probably clinically depressed.

Time’s a funny thing. I look back on seminal moments from my life from just a decade or so ago, and it’s more than just the details that are fuzzy, it’s the actual events themselves. As I sit here turning now 49, I feel like any event I remember must be considered “based on a true story.” The constants, however, are the people and the emotions.

But some things are very clear to me. 11 years ago I was turning 38. 11 years ago was 2005.
11 Years ago was 4 years after the events of 9/11, which hit me so profoundly that I moved my wife and 2-year-old daughter from the comfortable suburbs of Boston to the deep nowhere of Western Massachusetts. For most of 2002 to 2004 I didn’t really think anything or talk to anyone. I just made things. I worked with my hands. I poured concrete foundations and cleared woods and set roofbeams. My guidebook at the time was the somberly titled Working Alone. Jobs that would take an hour with a crew or a crane (say, setting a roof beam) took me a week of careful planning and rigging.

I loved my young family as best I could. I went to church, and tried to love God as best I could. I cooked, but it all tasted grey.

By 2004, the money had run out, and we’d finally, after much difficulty, brought our second child into the world. So I did what you’re supposed to do as a young father: I got a job that I hated, to pay the bills.

The situation, of course, did wonders for my mental health.

At the time, I imagine most people thought I was “OK.” While we lived in a tiny house, I’d built a nerdpalace next door – 1,500 square feet of makerspace and gamerspace. When I wasn’t doing the job I hated, I played Unreal Tournament 2K4, or Halo 2 or Half Life 2 or, of course, World of Warcraft, until my hands cramped. Almost always multiplayer games, but never with voice chat. Most of my human interaction was shooting people who might as well have been robots. It was enough to keep me going.

But I wasn’t “OK.” I was pressed flat by time and death and epilepsy and the uncertainty of obligation. The anxiety of parenthood left me shelled, because after the adrenaline would purge from a Counter-Strike match or a long run, no blood rushed back in. I was veins full of stale air.

“OK,” she said. “We don’t have to do anything.” I don’t remember my wife being concerned, because that’s her gift. In the face of a massacre, she’d be the one organizing triage. Time and time again, the worse things are around her, the more calm and collected she is. Which, in retrospect, should have been my clue that she was deeply concerned.

A week passed, maybe two, and my birthday, probably a Saturday, arrived.

“So, I need to get a few things for the baby at the mall,” she said. “Let’s at least all go together. You can walk around with Jen while I shop.” And so ,off to the mall, like a diligent, errand-running-dad, I go.

“Oh, hi, Rob!” says my wife, as we run into Rob Daviau, a dear friend I hardly ever see. The mall, an hour away (we live in the boonies), is in his direction. She reached into the baby stroller and grabbed an overnight bag. “See you tomorrow,” she said, kissing me like we were 19, and pushing me away.

“OK, let's go,” says Rob, leading me out of the mall and into his car.

Once in the car, he reaches into a cooler in the back and pulls out two liters of diet coke and a bag of Doritos.
“Happy birthday, Julian; this is a kidnapping.” It turns out my wife hadn’t been the only one concerned, and Rob had concocted an intervention, enlisting my wife as co-conspirator.

We drove about an hour, and we talked. Like, really talked. About everything f*cked up in our lives, about everything we loved in the world, about heading into middle age underemployed and stressed to the point of numbness. We pulled up to a crappy hotel hosting a one-day gaming event just outside of Boston.

For the next 8 hours, we played games, as friends – together, in the same space, like human beings. Every half hour or so, another dear friend from far away, a friend whom I hadn’t seen in forever, would walk in and give me a tremendous hug. They came bearing gifts. Not silly things like presents – they brought sushi and cupcakes and stories and terrible old jokes. They brought remembrances of things and people and places that had once brought me joy, and, seen through their eyes, brought me joy again too. At the end of the day, we had a huge dinner of terrible hotel food. It was possibly the best meal I’ve ever had.

And I was saved.

It wasn’t overnight, to be sure. But for some reason, that outpouring of love, at that exact time, was exactly what I needed to just start being in the world again.

It would take another year for me to really understand that I needed a community and a family-I-chose. I started doing the work to make that a reality. Not-coincidentally, I started writing about games, and writing for Gamers With Jobs right after that.

It would take another two or three years for the occasional trip en masse to that local con to turn into “let’s just do it all at Rabbit’s house.”

And it would take another 8 years before I finally read someone’s explanation of depression, and coming out of it, that would make me see all this with any clarity: Allie Brosh, the author of the webcomic Hyperbole and a Half. I still have this image bookmarked to remind myself:

IMAGE(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-y8VAO5A0OgY/Uga_Y2rpn7I/AAAAAAAAKSo/9vPUje-Zb30/s1600/DEPRESSIONTWO8.2.png)

I turned 49 today. That’s a big number. And while nobody’s really asked, if someone did ask “What do you want to do for your birthday?” I no longer have an ounce of me, not one drop, that has a hesitation in answering.

“I want all of my friends and family, in my house, playing games and laughing.”

I want that, honestly, every day.

Comments

Happy Birthday Rabbit!

I loved this article and I will be making my wife read it. I was in a similar headspace from 2006 to mid 2014. We had relocated to an area where I had no friends and no real prospect or interest in making friends and I internalised everything. My only real social release was computer games with the GWJ crew half a world away from me. then in 2014 I decided to get into boardgames in a big way, found a group, made a bunch of new friends and never looked back.

If I ever win the lottery and can afford the trip to America I'd love to make it to a Rabbitcon.

Hope you have a great time.

I don't think I ever heard the part about your wife's role in the kidnapping. Might be my favorite part of the story.

This is absolutely beautiful Rabbit.

Articles like this are a continual reminder of why Gamers with Jobs is my home on the internet, full of friends and family I have just not yet met face to face.

Love you, dude.

“OK,” she said. “We don’t have to do anything.” I don’t remember my wife being concerned, because that’s her gift.

Holy sh*t goddamn.

That's beautiful.

A few year earlier than this (in Rabbit's timeline) I was about to embark on my early 20's, and my friends and family had an "intervention" with me to get me on antidepressants. I can't say it improved my life, but it certainly saved it.

Thanks so much, again and forever Rabbit (Julian).

Just don't make a grammatical mistake or I'll f*ck your sh*t up.

The beautiful thing, is that Rob Daviau relayed this exact same story for me from his point of view, and it pretty much matches up word for word. It makes me impossibly happy that I live in the timeline/universe where this was the course of events.

It's funny how a guy like Julian walks into your life one day and changes it forever for the better. If you are very very lucky, you get that day. I don't know why I lucked out but I'm ever grateful that I did.

Happy birthday, buddy!

Happy birthday, pal! You guys came into my life at precisely the right time. I only wish I got to hang out with you all more frequently.

That's awesome, man! Happy birthday!

“I want all of my friends and family, in my house, playing games and laughing.”

I want that, honestly, every day.

God I also wish this were possible!

Happy Birthday, and see you soon!

Thanks for that. That's a lovely story, and I hope you had a great birthday.

Happy Birthday Rabbit. With the Live from Rabbitcon editions of the conference call, all Goodjers are there with you. Those are some of my favorite episodes.

Happy birthday man! Thats a beautiful story proving so many basic points: Great friends and family are essential to mental health AND when you are sick you need to rest, when you are depressed, you need to do fun stuff!

Happy birthday. Welcome to the other side.

Happy birthday, Julian! It's the best Julian in the world! Julian!

Now get your butt back into the Rocket League GWJ Swarm!

Happy birthday, bud.

Happy Birthday. This is important, and thank you all for sharing your friendship.

Happy Birthday! Your post is super relevant because RabbitCon actually inspired my own quarterly gaming convention, MartinCon. We usually have about 30 people throughout the weekend, and it's always some of the best weekends of my year. Thank you for the inspiration, and thanks for sharing this post.

Happy Birthday, Julian. Making the short list for a Rabbitcon invite has been one of my squad goals since I first heard it described on the podcast. Always remember that you are loved and respected by an amazing community of strangers!

In a world of infinite money Mix, everyone here would come and it would be Goodjercon, but since it's my house, architecture kind of caps me out.

Happy Birthday rabbit! Thanks for sharing this awesome story!

Yup. The last ten years or so have been an often times grueling, often times incredibly rewarding marathon of learning how to be a functional human being, and GWJ, the PAX tabletop crowd, and Rabbitcon have all been a huge, huge help in the process. I don't think that the me of ten years ago would be able to recognize the head-space of the me today at all, and I'm really grateful for the changes, and the work that I've done to get here.

Huge hugs to you, Rabbit, and to Mrs. Rabbit and everyone else who's helped you to get to where you are today as well

Happy birthday and thanks for sharing that beautiful story.

Happy Birthday, Rabbit, and thanks for sharing the story.

Happy Birthday, Rabbit! One of these days, we must plot and see if we can make GWJerCon Boston a reality.

sometimesdee wrote:

Happy Birthday, Rabbit! One of these days, we must plot and see if we can make GWJerCon Boston a reality.

Heck, I'm still hoping we do a rabbit-adjacent bar-takeover S&T...

Thanks for sharing this <3 And happy birthday

Happy Birthday, Rabbit! Someday, this internet hug will become a real hug. Thank you for writing this lovely piece.

Your voice is a huge reason why this site took off the way it has. Thanks for pulling back the curtain and sharing. Happy Birthday Rabbit!

This was great Rabbit. Glad your wife and friends saw how to help you, we're all better for your presence.

Sad reminder that Hyperbole and a Half is still on hiatus though.

rabbit wrote:

In a world of infinite money Mix, everyone here would come and it would be Goodjercon, but since it's my house, architecture kind of caps me out.

So if I kill a man in single combat, I move up the list?