Girls Just Wanna Have Fun (A 2026 check-in?)
- Jess
- 9 hours ago
- 9 min read
Hey, look at that. A lighter post where I get to nerd out.
Also: Community. Friends. Adventure. Play.
While formatting this, I realized it also works in a way as a goal check-in? I guess it counts. I'm counting it.
When we lived in Tooele, I’d discovered there was a Star Wars group that frequently met up and practiced tricks with lightsabers and ‘battled.’ It looked like fun and a good way to meet more people who liked the same things I did. I was excited and even bought a combat lightsaber with that year’s Christmas money. My daughter was still young, but she was getting to the age where I’d be able to leave her with my husband and maybe start attending meetings.
Creating or cosplaying a character, dressing up, and having fun at cons sounded awesome. The fact that the League (I think that’s what they were called) also attends hospitals to visit kids, or local events, and of course the cons/expos in Salt Lake sounded like something I’d love to be involved in. I had the saber, but I didn’t have a costume. We didn’t have a lot of money at the time, nor had I started sewing again yet, so I remember trying to figure out how much I’d need to save to commission an outfit from a seamstress I’d found. I remember crunching numbers to figure out when I’d have enough to pay for the estimated price tag. And then a week later my husband got a job offer down in Texas.
Utah is nerdy. It’s pretty easy to find groups who are into gaming, larping, writing (the community is massive there, and I miss that too), and pretty much all manner of harmless fun. It’s something I appreciate about it. Houston is not that. Houston is good for work, as I have been told at this point by everyone and their dog. (Though, if you'd like to know what it's not good for, please come and talk to me.)
But Houston is not nerdy, nor does it have easy to find communities. A quick Google search shows Houston has a group now, but when we first moved down, I couldn’t find anything. And then I got pregnant with my son, and after his birth I then was focused on him and my daughter. Over time, my interest in Star Wars died down a little bit (and then came back later), and eventually I sold the saber to help me pay for my Aussie.
If I remember correctly, it was around the same time I got my pup that I also stopped pursuing writing fiction (something I wrote about in 2024). And I still think one day I'll probably go back to it, even just for the enjoyment of it, regardless of whether I get published or not. But right now, my plate is past max capacity in what I’m able to dedicate a lot of time towards, so it can wait. But I miss my writing group and writing friends and conferences. The community, at least up in Utah, was tight-knit and accepting. There are communities for writing down here, but it's been difficult to find ones that embrace genre writing like science fiction or fantasy.
A little before that, I'd also left the church. Everyone's experience is different with their faith or losing it, and for me, losing it resulted in growing and becoming happier—even if the way to that was painful and difficult. And while I don't miss the doctrine, I do miss the people and sense of belonging the church offered. I won't go much more into that, but I will say losing that aspect was much harder than I anticipated and is probably the only thing I miss. Again, I'm grateful to my friends who are still a part of it. I don't mind supporting them with their faith, as they were there as I lost mine.
My husband has his work friends and a strong sense of purpose and community in the nonprofit healthcare space. I’m sure I’ll also have work friends, but I’m a firm believer that it’s good to have some outside of it. My spouse is incredibly close with his family, including his brother-in-law (Dave), who he plays video games with. From what I can tell, Dave is super social and tends to collect online friends like my kids pick up seashells at the beach. So, my husband tends to get roped in occasionally with whatever friend group Dave has gathered together. I want to say around three or four years ago, the two of them were in a Discord group with some online friends they’d found. One of the guys wanted to know if anyone wanted to try to play D&D for a change.
D&D is one of those things I’ve always been curious about. I get to pretend to be someone else on an adventure? There’s magic and monsters? Plus storytelling and chaos? I get to act theatrical and feel silly/goofy while doing it? Sign me up. I’m down. It might take me a while to warm up and be fully into it, but I want to learn to get over that (or at least get over it faster). I just didn’t know anyone who played, nor did I have much clue on how to find a group. So, when the guys agreed to give it a try, and anyone else was invited too, I decided to join. It was fun, but the DM had never done it before and playing across Discord is…not something I’d recommend. I liked it, but I also thought it would be better if we could have played in person or maybe Zoom. I think we played a total of two, maybe three times, before it fell apart and they all resumed online gaming.
It wasn’t until two weeks ago that I stumbled across D&D again.
Every year the “McWinnersons” stay in cabins at Fort Boggy. It’s a tradition, but this year I decided to opt out, which meant I had three nights to figure out what to do with myself. The gun range was on the list, but I wasn’t sure about the other two nights. And then I remembered I’d seen something the month prior. I like to look for events or groups through Facebook and apps like Eventbrite, and I’d seen one for a “Folklore Festival.” While checking for the location and time, I glanced at who ran the festival and had set it up. It was some page called “BarHaven.” I got curious and clicked on their profile, only to find out it was a D&D community that hosted games literally every night of the week. They hosted them at different bars, taverns, and breweries around Houston, and their website said beginners were welcome. They had characters you could play, if you hadn’t created your own. There was a current calendar up, which was encouraging, and the festival itself was proof that it was an active community.
Thursday I finally made it out to the gun range in what felt like forever, then Barnes and Noble. Friday was game night. After looking at BarHaven’s site, it seemed like one of the better nights to go. But I underestimated traffic and getting out the door. I pulled into the gravel parking lot of the tavern a whole thirty minutes late, found a parking spot in front of a wooden fence, and sat there in the dark. I stared at the dash and warred with my two options: turn around and just go home or go in anyway. Even if I was late, I could maybe watch people play and introduce myself. I had driven all that way in hellish traffic. I needed to just tell the little voices of doubt to shut up. My therapist once warned me against ‘learned helplessness,’ which is when an animal or person starts to believe that whatever they do will result in failure, so they give up trying, even when an opportunity for success is presented. They won’t try—because they’ve accepted the conditioning. That had stuck with me. Nothing changes unless you try something different. Staying in the car wasn’t really an option.
I was just nervous. I always get nervous meeting people. For a long time, I thought I was an introvert. My sister disagrees. She’s probably right—but I don’t get energized being around others. I found out a third option is a thing—ambivert (a mix between the two and the most common). I’m either that or a socially stunted extrovert. I like being in social settings. I don’t want the limelight, but I will happily stay the whole time. While I like social situations, I sometimes struggle interacting with the group as a whole as I tend to want to focus on one or two people. That's probably why I usually end up gravitating to someone louder and chattier. And that is exactly what happened on Friday when I finally shut off my car, grabbed my backpack, and headed across the parking lot and toward the entrance.
A neon purple sign of a squirrel with antlers glowed in the dark as I approached, and little taxidermied rodents lined the top of the window above the door. As soon as I walked in the tavern, I saw three people standing to the left of the entrance. One man was holding a giant d20 die, which somehow eased my nerves as I introduced myself. Turns out, the game hadn’t started yet as they usually let players get settled with food and drinks during the first half hour. When they found out I was new, they immediately set me up with a pre-made character and some free dice as a welcome gift (turns out the giant d20 die was a box filled with brightly colored dice packets).
One of the women there had me sit next to her and helped explain the stats on my sheet, or with what to do throughout the game. Her character was French and she spent the night talking, yelling, and laughing in an accent, all while frequently stopping to lean over to whisper suggestions to me. Another person’s character was named Britney, and she usually ended her turn saying something along the lines of “It’s Britney, bitch!” as she did something clever. And another was a gothic halfling that was low in intelligence but hilariously high in chaos.
The DM (he was in training) had also given some pointers before we started. He'd leaned over my Ranger’s page, glanced at it, and nodded in approval. “Oh good,” he'd said. “No dumb pets.”
My eyebrows shot up and I laughed. “What's wrong with pets?”
“They're good in theory, but useless.” He shrugged and glanced at my sheet again and grinned. “Whoever created your character did a good job.”
I ended up liking my human ranger character a lot. During one of my turns, I shot an arrow at a hyena creature and was asked to roll to find out how it landed. Everyone cheered when it landed on a natural 20. “He’s definitely dead,” the DM had said. But what I wasn’t expecting was when he then asked,“so what does it look like?”
I’m fairly certain I looked like a deer in the headlights as everyone at the table looked at me expectantly, but I quickly described the scene—even if I felt a little flustered doing so. I didn’t realize narrating what happened wasn’t just the DM’s job, but the players' roles as well. (I have since started to watch Dimension 20 episodes on YouTube, and I’m getting a clearer idea.) I’ll definitely be better next game.
The night went by fast and was some of the most fun I’ve had in a very long time. I laughed a lot, and I walked away feeling like I’d be welcomed back again. Everyone there was great. I loved being able to sit and have some fun, and then in between turns, have mini conversations with the other players. I’m excited about the creativity you can have with a character, the collaborative nature of the game, and no one taking it or themselves too seriously.
I’m also in deep trouble because I thought the worst thing I’d end up collecting with D&D would be dice. It turns out there are also miniature figures, the sets (I’m not that worried about those at least. I don’t need the stress of being a DM), dice trays, rollers, cases, and all sorts of stuff.
I’m screwed.
I’m trying to save money. Ammo is already expensive! I don’t need a new collection. I don’t. I did get a few things at Saturday’s festival (I’d gone with a few things I wanted to find) and have since fought every urge to buy anything off Amazon or go looking in the local gaming stores. So far, I haven’t. I have enough for now. There’s plenty of accessories out there and they aren’t going anywhere. I’ll be fine. More importantly, I have what I need to have some fun.
And let's all take a moment and be happy for my poor therapist too, because for once I get to sit down on Zoom with her and say, “You're not going to believe what happened since I last saw you,” and it's about something positive and good. My efforts are paying off, and so is her patience. God (or whoever) bless you patient types. I'm excited to tell her about all the fun.
I’ve heard a few times from either books, or more recently a podcast, about the importance of play for adults. Yes, in the bedroom counts. But if you’re looking for different forms (or that area isn’t possible for whatever reason or not currently happening) then there are others. Maybe I’ll deep dive into the benefits of why it’s important to have fun and play and then write about it. But even if the benefits aren’t as great as I’m expecting (I haven’t looked that deeply yet, so who knows), its fun. Life can be hard, and finding a way to escape your problems for a couple of hours with a healthy outlet is important to have. Make-believe is fun. Role-playing and being utterly ridiculous is fun. Making myself go a little past my comfort zone and get a little embarrassed while other people do the same—is fun. And I think that’s fine if that’s all it is.
(The podcast I listened to. I've heard other professionals also discuss it, but I need to look them up again.)
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