Hello again everyone: friends, foes, faeries, flame dragons, and fantastic supporters of The Arena. My blog is finally back and, if you’re in the mood, you’ll get to read about my daily life, and struggle, as the owner of a TCG shop in Ingolstadt. I’ll take you through the highs and lows, the good and the bad, the great and the unexpected. This is a celebratory entry! The very first one here! While my website isn’t close to being ready, the blog section doesn’t need any fancy buttons or anything of the sort, so I can just…do my thing.
Today is my free day. I spent yesterday mostly relaxing and trying to unwind, but today I already need to plan for the coming week. I originally wrote this entry about two months ago, and while the impact it has on me is still as strong as the first time I wrote it, I did change some stuff, added some parts, and removed others. The general idea is still there. I initially wanted to write this post on Facebook, but have since changed my mind because several companies are following my page there and this entry focuses on personal matters more than the shop itself. And now, we should get to the serious part.
This is the first and only time I will write about this. You’ll see in a bit why. This is going to be a long post, so if you plan on going through it entirely it might take a while. Perhaps grab yourself an iced tea, turn on some lo-fi music, get cozy, and read on.
!!!!IMPORTANT NOTICE!!!!: This post includes some VERY HARD topics that some might find disturbing. You have been warned. Continue reading at your own risk. I am not joking here. Some people might have triggers related to this post. Do not continue reading if you believe you are not equipped to handle strong feelings. This is the most vulnerable and raw entry that you will most likely read on my blog.
Are you alright with that?
Yes?
Then, let’s do this. Together.
The most often question I have been asked since deciding to re-open The Arena has been: Why did you close the other store? I am sure some might have theories as to why, but I think 99% of them are not correct. The obvious reason would be that it wasn’t financially worth it, which is wrong. It was for me because I put a heck of a lot of effort into my store. And hard work does pay off. The money wasn’t the problem. If some of you recall, I even got to hire people to work with me at the store. That’s not cheap to do, so the financials were ok.
Some have hinted at my lack of interest in Magic the Gathering. I did have a big dip in my passion for MtG, but that as well wasn’t a good enough reason to close up. TCGs are cyclical. Sometimes you get a good set or your type of deck becomes more viable in the meta and you want to play more. Sometimes the meta is horrible, there’s only one actual deck running over everything and the game becomes stale and boring. For me, it was a mix of everything. But I knew it would pass and I would eventually want to play again, although in the past two and a half years, I have played a total of zero MtG games.
That’s because my mind was on something else entirely.
At the end of 2021 in October, if I recall correctly, I got the news that my mother was suffering from Lung Cancer in stage 4. I was crushed. A completely unexpected turn in my family’s life. To understand my deep sorrow about this entire thing I want to mention that my life and my mom’s life were not easy growing up. At the best of times it was bearable, most of the time it was very hard, and once or twice a week it was hell. I’ll only say that my father wasn’t a nice person. You can imagine what that means when I say hell. So when the diagnosis for my mom came up I could only be angry, so very angry, at the world, at life. After all we’ve been through, after all the sacrifices we had to make to get where we were, now this. This fucking unforgiving disease that only destroys, that only causes pain, suffering…I am already crying at my keyboard writing this, but I also want to write it all out. It’s supposed to be therapeutic and stuff to talk about it openly, so I’ll finish it up.
As I was saying…I wasn’t in the best of moods when I got the news. I was crying in my shop when nobody was around and couldn’t really hold myself together. All the cards, all the money, all the…everything, didn’t matter anymore. What’s the use of all those things when life as I knew it would then turn around and change in the most drastic of ways…That’s when I decided that I would sell everything and take care of my mom as best as I possibly could. As much as she would allow me to. I initially wanted to pay for special treatments, but she was already getting what was considered to be very good treatments here in Ingolstadt. So I used the money to take her on trips, to buy really tasty food, to just…live nicely for a little bit more time. In all honesty, I could no longer enjoy anything. The food never tasted like anything to me, and the vacations were very nice, but there was this dark cloud over me constantly following me everywhere and I couldn’t shake it off no matter what I did. This went on for 2 and a half long years. My mom managed to hold on and we got closer than ever in those years. I have always had a very good relationship with my mother. It wasn’t only my mom who got cancer and was dying, it was also one of my best friends, and most likely the only person in this world who loved me unconditionally, and perhaps ever will. I was there every step of the way. I went through all the high and deep lows. The final two weeks were the hardest at the hospital, but I got through them. I already gave enough details, probably much more than I should have, but there are so many more that could even better describe what I was feeling. I didn’t know I could hurt as much as I did in those times. I didn’t know pain could reach such limits.
As you can all imagine by now, the treatments didn’t work and my mother passed away 8 months ago on 13.11.2023. May her soul fly free and watch over me. Thank you for everything, Mom. I miss you every day.
But I’m still here. Even after all the alcohol abuse that I swam through, sitting in front of my PC and mindlessly playing video games for days in a row. I got through the depression that was pinning me down. I got through the haunting images and dreams that plagued me. They sometimes come back, but they are much more manageable now. I somehow got through all of that.
I didn’t want this post to carry a feeling of self-pity or attention-seeking. If anything, most of you know that I’m quite a private person and I tend to keep to myself, hence why I never mentioned this in the first place when I closed the shop two years ago. But now, with all being said and done, I think it’s best you know who you’re supporting when you’re at The Arena. I think it’s important that you know my story. It’s important you know that after all of that awful stuff that happened, there was still enough will in me to get back to my roots and rebuild once again. And if I can do it, so can you if your turn ever comes. Someone told me that I shouldn’t write about this, that I should keep it to myself. I think it’s better to express feelings openly. People should be more comfortable talking about the harder topics of life because we have to go through them at some point and it really helps when you know that someone out there has been through the same stuff you’re going through.
What’s with the picture though? What does it mean? Well…You know it as my profile picture. It’s…very dear to me. I got it as a gift for my birthday from someone who has supported me from very far away when my life was crumbling. There’s another person even farther away who kept my ship from sinking lower. Thanks, Oscar. Thanks, Josh. Thank you, Cosmin and Clara for coming over when I needed you most. Thanks to all my friends who checked in on me when everything was dark. And a big thank you to someone you might know: Tobi, his wife Petra, and Mila. Thanks for being there for me when I was all alone and hope felt lost.
Thank you. All of you. Your actions, your love…saved me.
Thank you for being there to Light My Way, Through The Darkness.
This post is meant to celebrate the life of someone dear to me and that The Arena is back! I’m back, and we’re going to build it all up again. All the tournaments, the clutch plays, the awesome decks we’re going to fight with, the laughs we’ll have at misplays, and the salt we’ll share at the random top deck luck of our opponents 🙂 All of it. We’re getting it all back. Together.
A final note to anyone who may have gone through what I did, who is going through this, or who will go through this. There’s hope. Don’t give up. If you need anyone to talk to about this, come to The Arena. We can sit down and have a chat. Or maybe you just need someone to be there who gets it. We can also sit in silence for a few minutes if that’s better. Just know, that you’re not alone. That things do get better. That you’re allowed to be weak or strong or whatever it is you feel. And most importantly, that you’re still you and that you have a long way to go. Your friends will be happy that you’re just there. Trust me.
So if you feel like it’s over, just take one step, put one foot in front of the other, and get back on the path that was laid out for you. You deserve happiness, and you’ll have it.
Thank you for reading.
See you in the Arena,
– Hadrian Maximus
English