Hello here I am almost a year later with an update. Lots of life happened! Turns out I go through phases with this site, where I'm really into maintaining it for like a week or 2 and then I fall off again (it happens with lots of my hobbies).
Anyway, I've been feeling fall in the air, especially today. It was rainy, dark, and the sun is going down earlier and earlier. I decided to skip going to the gym tonight to have some time to just decompress. I played some Final Fantasy 2, ate some homemade cookies, and then just sat and thought for a while, listening to the rain.
I was kind of thinking about writing. Well not kind of, I WAS thinking about it. Ya see, almost my whole life I've sorta identified as a "writer" -- I loved writing stories when I was a kid, to the extent that I would write like 40 pages for my creative writing assignments in school when maybe it just had to be a few pages. Just going way overboard like that.
Then, of course, I started writing fanfiction - neopets and pokemon stories mostly, and that continued until the end of high school. I took a lot of joy in writing these stories, but most of all I think the thing that excited me the most was hearing what people had to say about my writing. One time this person reviewed my neopets story and told me it was one of the best things they've ever read, that it touched them deeply, made them cry, etc. And hearing that just made me feel so... I dunno? Powerful? Powerful seems like a weird adjective for it. Important? Still doesn't feel right. I dunno, it just made me feel like my thoughts and words really MATTERED, and that was one of the greatest feelings I've ever had. So I continued to write in hopes that I could continue to strike those kinds of chords in people.
I sorta had a lightbulb moment tonight, though, when I was thinking about it. I don't think my love of writing was ever strictly about the... writing part. I was never too good at plotting or creating storylines... my writing was always characterized by passionate characters, drama, and extreme ups and downs. I didn't really know where I was going with any of it, I was just kind of riffing. Putting my thoughts and feelings down and hoping that maybe someone might be able to relate. And I think that's really what my love of writing was always really about - the ideas, the emotions, the connecting with people.
Over the years, I stopped writing as much. I still journal a lot, of course, but I kind of stopped writing stories and fiction. And it always kind of bothered me. Because I had always identified as a "writer" - I felt like I had abandoned a part of me, that I was wasting some sort of potential and now the writer part of me was just wasting away inside of me. I felt really bad about it for years.
But honestly, I don't think that part of me ever actually went anywhere. The writer just got transformed into other things. Whether it was other forms of art like drawing or painting, playing the piano, or even just the way I lived my life - the Thing that made me love writing was still coming out in other ways. I think it even comes out when I'm streaming, and that's part of why I love streaming. Instead of writing a whole thing and then waiting for people to read it, I can just share my ideas and experiences with people and they can do thte same and we can talk about them in real time? It's the best thing ever, honestly. Looking at things in this way has made me fall in love with streaming all over again.
I've never been super into putting labels on myself. Even when I was writing a lot it felt semi-weird to call myself a Writer, because I kind of felt like I didn't take it as seriously as some of my peers who were really into it. Dunno if that makes sense. Either way, maybe my aversion to labels is just a way of reminding myself that I don't need to limit myself. I can be whatever I want to be, whenever I want to be, and it's okay to change my mind. Labels feel so final, and I like changing my mind. Life kind of feels like an experiment, in that way.
Wasn't really sure where I was going with this but I wanted to get it down so I don't forget. I do still love writing, and maybe one day I'll write the book I've always wanted to write. But I don't have to be a Writer with a capital W -- it doesn't have to be my life, and maybe it will never be as big a part of me as it was when I was younger. But I can still enjoy it and come back to it whenever I need to. It's like an old friend: even if we don't necessarily spend a ton of time together anymore, it'll always be there for me.
Well I think it's time for another journal entry! It's been a few weeks since my last one. Time has just flown by. It's weird how fast time passes sometimes. I don't like it! But I think I'm partly to blame in that. Not going to lie, I waste a LOT of time just scrolling social media, sometimes. And it does me 0 good. Sometimes I feel like I'm addicted to information -- like I'm convinced I'm going to find some article, or some tweet, or some youtube video that's going to give me the answer to life, that's going to solve all my problems. I've listened to so many "self-improvement" podcasts over the past year, but honestly I can only think of one that's really stuck out and actually helped me. Was all that time spent on consuming all that content worth it just to find that one gem?
I'm not so sure. I want to say yes, but at the same time, all of the valuable time I sacrificed in order to find that nugget of wisdom could have been spent doing much more important and fruitful things. And I know, I know... it's not time wasted if you're having fun! I hear the choir singing. But was I really having fun? I don't know. I feel like a majority of time I spend online isn't done out of joy or passion, it's just something to do because I don't know what else to do. And I've struggled with this for a long time. When I was a teenager, in an attempt to get myself to spend less time on the computer, I wrote a sticky note on my monitor as a reminder: "The computer is something to do, not WHAT you do."
I feel like I should apply that same philosophy to my phone usage. I've really been thinking about cleaning up my phone, deleting apps, making to into as much of a "dumb" phone as possible so I'm not tempted to flush my precious time down the toilet.
'cause that's one thing I've learned as I've gotten older -- time is really our most precious asset, and we don't know how much we have left.
I have more to say on this topic, specifically how it relates to streaming and content creation in general. But I think I'll save that for another day!
~see ya
Today I heard about Rachael Lillis passing on 8/10, who if you don't know, was the original voice actress for Misty and Jessie in Pokemon. She had a lot of other roles in other series, but I knew her most for playing those characters (and Jigglypuff!).
Anyway, I found myself weirdly affected by the news, like... I even cried a little? I think it's the first "celebrity" death that's ever made me cry, even. I think it's mostly because Pokemon, literally, was my childhood. It was probably the biggest constant in my life during my childhood. And when I say I was obsessed with pokemon, I mean I was obsessed... I would record episodes on VHS while I was at school so I could watch them when I got home... would play pokemon on my gameboy every day after school ALL NIGHT until going to bed (and even in bed under the covers sometimes). When I was in high school, I wrote pokemon fanfiction. You get the picture...
So hearing about her passing really hit a nerve, not only because I really liked her work, but because it seems like a sort of reminder that childhood really is over and there's no going back. That era of life is over. I can still look back on it and reminisce, I can still watch old episodes of pokemon when I'm sick with the flu (which is what I do; it's my comfort show), but there's no going back to being 8 or 10 and getting home from school and just escaping with pokemon.
Escape is harder to do, now. Whether it's because of work, or chores, or just the weight of everything wrong seeming to be going on in the world these days... I find it harder and harder to just forget things and let myself get immersed in things.
To my credit, I DID play Pokemon Ultra Sun earlier this year, which was really nice. I did kind of rush through bits of the story, but I otherwise had a really good time with it. (I really want to take my time when I play games and fully enjoy them, but I guess there's still a bit of speedrunner left in me.)
Funnily enough, I was thinking about Jessie's voice earlier today. I heard a lady laughing in the park and it reminded me of her classic maniacal laugh. And then later I hear the news about ther voice actor. I think it's kind of a cute coincidence, anyway.
As awesome/funny as Jessie was, though, I think I like Misty more. She was definitely a character I identified with, because she was a little on the tomboy-ish side, although she could also be girly when she wanted to. She had kind of a fiery temper but wasn't afraid to yell at people for stepping over her boundaries. All in all, not a bad role model for a little kid to watch on the TV all the time.
RIP Rachael, ty for everything <3
9.29.25 - it was never about writing
9.9.24 - on wasting time
8.13.24 - RIP Rachael Lillis
