Gaming brat

Mental health challenges have always made it hard for me to connect and feel at home in my own skin, but because I have moved around so much, as a kid and an adult, I've had to adapt to new places and new people over and over again. (18 times and counting, in 36 years of life) I developed a lot of skills - I had to. But one of the most important things I've carried with me every since I was 11 years old is gaming. I have used gaming to make new friends in a new high school, at college, in new towns and neighborhoods, in graduate school, after cross-country moves for new jobs (or forced by a lack of job). I have this interest, hobby, and ability that lets me go and create community wherever I end up. Some of the few high school friends I still keep up with were people I gamed with. Most of my best friends from college were from various overlapping gaming groups. I gamed with my wife before we dated. I game now to meet new people, having moved again a couple years ago for another new job. 

There's pretty much nothing like gaming, and specifically tabletop RPGs, for this kind of portable community. You build a depth of understanding of one another that I haven't experienced coming from other hobbies, other interests, or even other kinds of games. There is something about being creative with other people, about telling stories together, about experiencing vicarious lives - well, I don't have to sell any of you on it, do I? But in a life that has sometimes felt like one tsunami after another, washing me around, gaming has been a life raft time and again.