I’m proud of my carefully selected four hundred game library and am not joking when I say that I regard its formation as one of my most notable achievements. Many hours of searching yard sales and sniping auctions have gone into building it.

Yet, when I look at the rows of games neatly arranged on their shelves, I feel a distance has opened between me and my games. Some things have happened to diminish the sense of rapport I always had with these games.

This is made all the odder because of my love of replaying games. I once played for adventure, I now play to remember the past. How nice it is to be able to return to what won’t change. Final Fantasy III, that wonderous RPG, I’ve now played many times. I also like Squaresoft’s simpler precursor Final Fantasy II which is admired by many and rightly so.

I think sometimes that I’m angry with my game library because I know I can’t replay them all. I would like to, but the time is not there. It is this, I think, that produces the slight sense of alienation that I feel when I’m together with my games now. They need to find other gamers soon…ideally that would be the son I hope to have some day, but if not him than other game lovers.

Gazing upon the multi-colored line of games aligned upon my shelves every genre is represented from Shmups to Puzzle Games, looking at them I felt like I once did walking the campus at Western Michigan years after I graduated. A girl I had dated in college came walking up to me with a baby in her arms. Rather then pretending we didn’t know each other we stopped and chatted pleasantly; then we both walked on, having enjoyed our light encounter.

That’s the way I feel now, when among my games. I might pull down my copy of Raiden Trad, play a level or two then put the game back in its clamshell and move on. Once I was passionate about Raiden Trad. Memorizing the enemies’ formation and their lines of fire all in order to beat the game but when I play it now, it’s a light encounter. And so life moves along.