Rebirth.

It's Tuesday, which means patch day. Rather than sleeping (it's now 07:15) I've been reading through the Elitist Jerks forums where I still have an active account. Color me surprised since my last login was in August of 2007.

Yes, it has been over two years since I last played World of Warcraft. Life very much got in the way of my WoW obsession and I left it all behind--even rid myself of the media (and subsequently the rights to my account). Occasionally I would wonder how old guildmates were doing, relive raid achievements in my mind, and flirt with the idea of going back to a game that had consumed a literal year of my life (in actual played time for those curious.)

And now I have returned.

I blame Mana, the wife of a coworker, who piqued my curiosity. There has been an entire expansion, an achievement system implemented, and a plethora of other changes during my absence. She elaborated on her goal of collecting 50 pets, explaining that her next month of playtime was a self-reward for having survived her classes. We chatted about the differences between my era of WoW and the current world, discussing the current and future changes in store. The seed had been sown.

I'm confident that my illness was just a scapegoat; I could have just as easily continued plotting but never playing Fallout 3 characters or worked on my plans for a speed run of Final Fantasy VIII. Instead, wrapped in a blanket with a box of tissues nearby, I registered for a trial account and installed the 'load-as-you-go' client.

That was last Thursday. I've situated myself on the Nesingwary server and have already 'level-capped' two characters at 20 while I wait for my World of Warcraft Battle Chest to arrive in the mail ($20 at GameStop? Heck yeah.)

Now I sit here debating if I should try to sleep for four hours before going to work or if I should tough it out. It is a debate that feels comfortably familiar.