Pour one out for the kid stuck in the glory days.

[Chase]

I'm just gonna jump right into this one. Fair warning, it's going to be messy.

 

I miss being a kid.

 

Not only was it much less stressful when my only problems were trying to one-up my friends at school, trying to keep my grades within a reasonably acceptable margin, and honing my leadership skills by being a section leader in band without making my fellow trombone players dislike me. It was much less monotonous. There was never a dull moment in high school. Never days, hours, seconds that just dragged on only to collide with the next period of non-progress or boredom.

 

It's gotten to the point where I had missed owning a home console to play video games one up until I was given a Switch for Christmas - and that I'm actually considering diving into the world of fun single player experiences on said Switch, like Breath of the Wild and Octopath Traveler. It's gotten to the point where I've become passionate enough to actually make it to the end of a current episode of Reborn, a game I couldn't even beat Noel in not too long ago. All of a sudden, video games have dangerously become a time-sink that my body craves - all because it was a huge guilty pleasure of mine when I lived my best life.

 

As a moderate-conservative in a generation that is predominantly liberal in an age where the worst of conservatives manage to win office all around the globe, it's an exhausting political climate to try and live and love as many people as possible in. People attack you for trying to rationalize or normalize a President that you didn't even vote for because of the potential good that President might bring. People attack you for criticizing a President that is "righting the wrongs of that other guy" and "works for us folks." There's no place for me to rest my head sometimes, and if there's one thing worse than having a minor identity crisis alone, it's not finding a crowd that you can reliably unpack all that is causing you to lie awake at night, or influencing the direction of your dreams when you finally do fall asleep.

 

It's becoming more and more evident that the current is pulling me toward the monotony that is adulthood, and that I have to swim to the opposite shore against the current to become the adult that I want to be. Unfortunately, I've swam too far to turn around and try to make it back to the shore I started on.

 

So the goal should be clear, get to the point where I am doing what I love, and I'll never have to work a day in my life, right? If only I was the master of my own destiny.

 

I was never really good at making friends. Whenever things like stumbling onto this here website and accidentally finding a bunch of really decent people by accident happen, they catch me by surprise. I had only stopped to talk about Pokémon a few times, and I ended up having my heart warmed, broken, and bandaged all in the span of a year and a half, followed by meeting several supporting cast members in the years to come. This place became the place I could talk about my guilty pleasures and live them out along side those who enjoyed them with me. It's been great.

 

However, the two halves of me are in conflict. I want the chance to live a crazy adolescent life because I feel like it went away far too soon. I want to make mistakes, and learn the hard way, like my sister did - but I'm too old to make some of those mistakes and my leash is much shorter because of it.

 

On the other hand, I want to settle down. I want the occupation I have groomed and prepared myself for the what feels like MANY years after high school right now. I want to find a wonderful wife that makes me feel like I've learned absolutely nothing during that time while letting me hold her hand as I proceed to complain to her about things. I want a daughter. MAYBE I want a son.

 

I want. And maybe that's my problem.

 

...but being content with what I have, which is sage advice, feels tired.

 

...anyway, that's all I've got. This is an open invitation for you guys to ask further questions, give any advice you think you can muster based on what little I wrote in specific here, or for any of you old friends of mine, to call me out on sounding stupid.

 

You guys are all alright, regardless on if you do any of that, or decide to just move on. Thanks for getting this far.

[Candy]

I think life's too short to dwell on what you don't have, because at the end of the day you're given just this life to do what you want with it and it'd be pitiful if it were not made to be at least somewhat pleasant. For example, I'm newly found in an environment where everyone is as smart or smarter than me, but I try to remind myself that being part of this crowd makes me sufficiently smart (this is a common pitfall in people who go to Ivy League schools, but it can happen to anyone including me). I also don't have a husband and will likely never have one thanks to some mild trauma, but I think each civil status has their pros and cons, and I don't believe being single puts me in a disadvantage to happiness compared to my married peers.

I think many people don't realize this (and of course, some disorders like depression may prevent the ability all together), but at the same time that our brains control everything about our beings, we also have the power to control our brains. We know what triggers its dopamine pathway. If that's playing video games, play them. Play so you may take away the stress from work, or the stress from not having the perfect life.

Funny thing you mention that you miss high school. However I'm sure there were times in high school when you wanted it to be over asap. Humans are by nature difficult to satisfy- if they are busy they want a break, and when they're unemployed they want work. It's more important to find happiness in the present, than to desperately look for a state of being where you're 100% satisfied, because as long as you're human, that state unfortunately doesn't exist.