Hi friends,
I hope you’ve all had a lovely week. This week’s homework from Postcards Home truly got me thinking. It was about finding the beauty in the ordinary and recognising that even the seemingly mundane elements of our lives tell a deeper story, revealing a glimmer of our true selves.
Huma offered us a prompt to help dig into this, “There’s something I have to tell you…” and, honestly, there are a few things I want to tell you right now. But in honour of this week’s theme, I’m reaching for what I consider ordinary and perhaps even trivial.
There’s something I have to tell you… I can’t stop thinking about playing The Sims. For the uninitiated, The Sims is a computer game where you create sims, houses and lives. Controlling every element, from when your sims pee to helping them reach their aspirations, it is amazing how much escapism one can find in a true life replica game.
I first started playing when I was a young teen. A group of us would huddle around a single monitor as we built houses, made our sim-selves and relished in making them do all the things we couldn’t yet. I dabbled with similar games, theme park and theme hospital, but none captured my attention as much as The Sims.
I stopped playing when I got older, as real life became plenty enough to think about. Then 2020 happened and I decided to purchase the latest version of the game, The Sims 4, to offer an additional pastime alongside Netflix and daily walks during lock-down. As I familiarised myself with the controls, I once again let time slip by while playing.
Just an OG Sims fan, living her life
Since then, I’ve continued playing and recently… I’ve taken things up a gear. TikTok started serving me sims-related videos and live streams of people playing The Sims. I watched out of curiosity and found myself equally enthralled and relaxed by the process. Quickly I learnt that these streamers also had YouTube channels. So, the last few weekends have seen me watching videos of them playing The Sims, whilst balancing my laptop on my knees so I can play too.
I’ve picked up tips and tricks that are making playing more fun. I'm feeling a funny sort of community as we all chuckle when a familiar glitch comes up for a streamer, shouting “this game is so buggy!’ in the comments. And yet, we continue to play. We get excited about new pack announcements, updates that’ll add gameplay and the infamous project Rene (The Sims 5).
I talked to a friend about this recently (one of the friends who was huddled next to me at a computer all those years ago) and I realised why all of this was bringing me so much joy. It’s because I have the headspace to truly geek out about something like The Sims. Previous versions of me had other things filling that space, whether it was thoughts about my business, what content I was going to create to promote that business, anxiety, worries about the future, or even – way back when – all-consuming thoughts of food and weight.
Don’t get me wrong, I still have things on my mind; what do I want from my career? Can I overcome my period pain naturally now doctors have apparently given up? When are we going to be able to buy a house? Are train strikes going to affect my travel next week? But amongst it all, there’s enough space for me to check YouTube for new videos, to launch the game and send my Sim to the spa, because she deserves a break. And my God, that feels utterly joyful.
I’d love to know what’s filling your head right now, is there something you’re geeking out about? A TV show that has you in a choke-hold? A topic you can’t read enough about? Let me know in the comments and let’s geek out together.
Until next time, take care.
Kat x
For me, it's definitely The Traitors. I have cajoled many people to get involved and am enjoying their commentary as they go through, even though I know how it plays out! And I just read this morning that season 2 has been confirmed!
I love this! I recently remembered how much I used to love The Sims because I bought my husband Red Dead Redemption 2 for Christmas and despite “not liking games” found myself compelled by the storyline and immersive world (I keep describing it as Sims in the Wild West 😂) with that in mind we started talking about Hogwarts Legacy and looking at Gameplay and got so excited we bought a PS5 last weekend. I picked the game up on Friday and making my character brought back allllll the Sims vibes! It’s Sims at Hogwarts! And like you I’ve just LOVED the hours slipping away (in a nice way) while I play a game and stop overthinking my life, my business, the intense heatwave this weekend