At the end of 2024 I took a break from TF2 for the sake of addressing my mental health and real life issues. I waited until the new year to play again, and when I came back it was fun once again. I shook off my rust and could feel myself getting better again with a fresh mindset.
And suddenly I was playing again, every day, all day.

I began writing how I felt after matches, I took note of my moods and how I treated people. I looked back in old chats and saw unhealthy patterns I'd promised to change, but was only repeating. I almost reached 11k hours before realising I'm addicted to this game. It would have taken me longer, but I can see the community changing. In all the matches I played, players bicker and ♥♥♥♥♥ and complain endlessly no matter what class, item, map, server setting, or playstyle I choose. Banter has always been around, but it's different now.
The fun I knew the game for is gone. But I felt it again one more time recently. Engies holding down obscure locations so distracting that the objective ends up ignored by both teams. Players laugh taunting after a melee duel that starts a chain reaction kill bind that wipes the server. Voice chats where the whole team is cheering for a final push, still losing our minds on the next map.

My first match of TF2 was offline against bots. I played as Blu Medic on dustbowl at 12 fps on a laptop. I remember that giddy feeling looking up the staircase through the gate, no idea just what I was getting into.

Yesterday I looked through that gate. Before the match started, I visualised the whole map. Then every map. Every item, every way to play. I thought of all the games I remembered, from my earliest moments cloak and dagger spy on turbine, to the long skial jailbreak phase, to the countless hours in calls laughing and making true friends, to the endless grind of potato mvm, to the concentrated nights on jump maps, to the endless matches on community servers.
And before the dustbowl gates could open I left the game. And I felt happy.

I didn't get to 1 million bot kills, one of two achievements left. I simply played too much medic, and the grind became so, so tiring. The youtube views achievement, well we'll see. I have some Terabyte or so of clips from shadowplay to string together in some meaningful way, but by now I want to wipe my hands clean and move on.

Team Fortress 2 let me live a second life while my real one became too much, but it's time I live for the right reasons again. For real this time, thank you to everyone I played with, friend or not. I put a lot of time into this game, but I'm the person I am because of it. And I'll take that with me forever.