The World That Let Me Stay When Everyone Else Left

I still remember the first time I played Skyrim. I was a teenager back then, awkward, quiet, and already starting to feel like I didn’t quite belong anywhere. When it released, I didn’t realize it would become more than just a game to me. It would end up being my refuge. My second home. The place I kept going back to when the real world started to feel like too much.

Everyone around me was moving on. Eventually, my friends upgraded to the Xbox One. Group chats dried up. No one really asked me if I was getting the new system. They just left. And I stayed behind—not just on the Xbox 360, but in life, it felt like. I was still trying to figure out who I was while everyone else seemed to be sprinting ahead.

So after school, day after day, year after year, I kept going back to Skyrim. And it never stopped feeling like something special. It was more than swords and dragons. It was choice. Freedom. A kind of gentle control in a life that often felt too directionless. I could be a wandering thief, a noble warrior, a mage with no ties to anything. I could start over whenever I wanted. I could exist in that world in ways I couldn’t in my own.

Some of those high school years were hard. Really hard. The kind of hard where you feel like you’re just going through the motions, where you don’t know why you’re even still trying. And it was during those times that Skyrim kept me anchored. When I felt like disappearing completely, I’d disappear into Tamriel instead. And somehow, that was enough to keep me around a little longer.

The modding community only made it better. New lands, stories, characters, music—there was always something new to experience, even after hundreds of hours. Even after I memorized the intro and could recite lines from guards and merchants without thinking, it still felt alive. It still felt like it understood me better than the people I sat next to in class.

I think a lot of people don’t realize how important a game can become. Not just as entertainment, but as a lifeline. Skyrim was mine. When everything else felt like it was slipping away, it stayed. Quietly, patiently, waiting for me to return. And I always did.

I guess that’s what I’ve been thinking about today. How something as simple as a game can mean everything when you feel like you have nothing. I don’t play it as often now, but when I do, that same comfort is still there. That same sense of, “You’re okay here. Stay as long as you need.”

And for someone like me, that means more than I can put into words.