How I long for yesterday..

Years ago you would have found it hard to throw me off my game, simple changes wouldn't have impacted my life in the least. These days with a sudden onset of panic disorder and stressful anxiety, shit really gets under my skin and drives me literally insane. Even just the simple matter of fucking up what should be nothing more than a simple drive to a thrift store.

I know I've complained about them in the past, but thrift stores have been an integral part of my self-therapy for dealing with anxiety, as they've been a part of my video game hunting pursuits for the past 2 years. But it seems that fate or perhaps even big business has other plans for my recovery, since they can't seem to keep a thrift store in the same format I'm familiar with anymore.

I've seen so many thrift stores, that I've literally spent hours at, simply shut down for seemingly no reason, relocate to inconvenient locations or even stop carrying bric-a-brac entirely! The only place that stays halfway consistent has been Goodwill, and by that I mean consistently overpriced! I will give Goodwill credit for the outlet store, but even there has changed up the switch out order, making it less of an experience and more of a trial in patience to see if you can give a shit long enough to find anything good.

Goodwill stores have had some good deals lately, but I'm sure its just another rare occasion of the person with the pricing gun not knowing what they're doing. One controller that I want is $.99 while another is $3.99 simply because it has more buttons, what sense does that make?

I've even lost Play n Trade, a place I frequented yet rarely, if ever, bought anything at. It was the only place I could go and see consistent pricing on retro games. Disc Replay's pricing is sometimes cheap, but that is mostly the same games everyone already has 3 of, everything else slowly crawls higher and higher the longer it sits on a shelf, it seems.

Since I got my Sega CD I've been on the prowl to find games to use it with, as I really don't like a system just sitting there doing nothing. I've seen them before and I know I'll see them again, but it just frustrates me to no end knowing most of them are overpriced, but people are all too happy to buy them anyway, giving thrift stores the false sense that those prices are totally acceptable.

Its quickly becoming apparent to me that the market I was so comfortable with, to the point I was using it as therapy, is crumbling beneath me. I'm not scared to adventure out from where I'm comfortable, I just don't think it gets any better on the other side. The prices I see other people bragging about are sometimes even higher than what I already think are too high in my local market.

Whether this is a sign to look deeper, look elsewhere or completely move on from where I am, or whether there is a good change upon the horizon, I don't know. All I know is that my price range will not change, no matter what, I'd rather go home empty handed! But the biggest reality shock is knowing as fucked up as I am with my anxiety, the world around me is so much worse off than I am.