I didn’t choose the gaming life, the gaming life chose me.  Actually, that is not really how it happened.

How did I become an Ironman Mom? Great question.

It all started when I fell in love with the sexiest nerd on the planet. You heard that correctly. Sexy and nerd in the same sentence. Albeit he was a sleeper nerd. Think Henry Cavill. Upon first glance you would never guess it.

 Now, I don’t know how many people can relate to the unique experience of dating a hardcore gamer, but let me tell you—this was uncharted territory for me.

After about a year of going to bed alone, eating alone, and listening to him cackle with his “friends” online while we were technically in the same house but living in very different realities, he finally took pity on me and said the magic words:

“Try Old School RuneScape.”

“Let’s make Group Ironman accounts.”

“We can play together.”

Together. That was the hook. Because honestly, I would’ve done just about anything to spend more time with this amazing human—even if it meant pretending to enjoy what I thought was pixelated chaos.

What started as me awkwardly posted up beside him on my little HP Envy 360 laptop, stealing a corner of his desk and resting my feet in his lap, has since spiraled into a full-blown “gaming room.” We now have matching desks (still side-by-side, obviously) and a gaming setup for me that’s wildly overqualified for Old School RuneScape—or so I’m told every time I dont’ ask.  

Have I learned anything along the way? Technically yes. I now know of things like GPUs and CPUs and vaguely understand they’re not the same. But let’s be real—I’m just in love with the sound of his voice and will happily listen to him explain the inner workings of a graphics card for 20 minutes, even though I’m retaining exactly zero of it.

Fast forward almost a year, and… I’m hooked.

I now understand what it means to get lost in a game. I know how hours disappear when you’re grinding XP doing some ridiculous, repetitive task. I get the thrill of opening a reward chest and thinking, “Will I get the pet this time?!” (Spoiler: no. Still no. Always no. But the hope lives on.)

So how do I juggle being a mom, a wife, a full-time special education teacher, and a low-key RuneScape addict?

In the beginning? I didn’t.

Laundry? Ignore it.
Sleep? Who needs it?
Work? Okay, I kept that in check—mainly because teaching is my passion and, y’know, bills.

But it got bad. Bad enough that my gamer boyfriend sat me down and gently suggested I might need to… slow down. You know it’s serious when the guy grinding sand crabs for 10 hours straight is telling you to chill.