I’m sitting on my dock again, legs dangling over the water, watching the stars come out one by one above Dry Desert Oasis.
This is my first official night as a homeowner.
I should feel proud. I do feel proud. Sort of. Mostly I feel exhausted, a little ridiculous, and weirdly emotional about a patch of dirt that now technically belongs to me.
I spent the entire day out here like a woman possessed. I planted every single herb and flower I had left in my collection. The nightbloom, the sungrass, the little cluster of peacebloom I’ve been hoarding since Eversong. I arranged them in sad little rows along the edges of the plot, trying to create some kind of natural screen so the neighbors don’t get a front-row seat to my empty life. I even tried to coax a couple of the bolder palm fronds to lean in a certain way like they might block the view. They mostly just waved at me like I was being dramatic. Of course they did. Even the plants know I’m a mess.
Meanwhile my battleground queue kept popping every fifteen minutes like it was personally offended I was trying to do something productive. I’d run off, heal a match, come back sweaty and annoyed, and plant two more herbs while muttering to myself.
The worst part? I still can’t figure out how to install doors or windows on the actual hut. I stood there for twenty minutes staring at the empty frames like they might magically fill themselves if I glared hard enough. They didn’t. So I gave up and did what I always do when something feels too complicated: I stuck with what I know. Gardening. Outside stuff. Things I can actually control.
The hut is still ugly as sin on the inside. Bare stone, no curtains, no furniture except the one sad bench I dragged in. But outside? Outside is starting to look like mine. A little wild. A little messy. A little hopeful.
I’m proud of that much, at least.
I’m also bone-tired, slightly sunburned, and still broke enough that curtains feel like a luxury I’ll earn sometime next expansion. But for the first time in weeks I’m not crashing on Abeke’s lumpy couch. I’m sitting on my dock, in my plot, listening to the water lap against the wood while my queue timer ticks down again.
It’s not perfect. It’s not even close.
But it’s mine.
And tonight that feels like enough.
~Sahsha
(Tired Disc Priest, Professional Babysitter of the Sin’dorei, Reluctant Returnee… and Brand New, Slightly Overgrown Homeowner)