Every so often I experience an intense desire to spew words in a pseudo-public space. When it comes to putting thoughts on “paper”, I believe there’s something about it that’s comforting and good for the mind. This intense desire typically ends up with me going back to my blog and internally dying a little as I read posts from my younger self. Often I shamefully delete old posts, embarrassed at the verbose aimless word vomit.

What remains in this poor space are gaping holes and fragments of my youth, with little to no context. The typical angst of a writer that often hates what they create.

But today there was a bit of relief too. Relief that my post on the Pixar movie Soul was still alive. Because in that awful wordy monologue remained my anguish at being so close to a lot of my goals, and never quite making it–working at the video game company of my dreams, but in a back office non-creative role.

It’s been 5 years since that post, and a lot has changed. I succeeded at becoming a Game Designer, one of my most fulfilling accomplishments in life. And while that company of my dreams gave me my first chance at Design–something I’ll always be grateful for–they also laid me off while my wife was pregnant with our second child. I now work for another video game company, and love my job. And I’ll always have complicated feelings for my previous employer.

I often wonder what it would be like to go back and talk to my younger self who wrote that post. “Hey, we made it. We got the job of our dreams.” But what I didn’t think about until just now was this–my younger self was also telling the current me that all of my successes and failures in life have still been meaningful regardless. They have made me who I am today. And no matter what, I’m still worthy of this spot I’ve carved out in this universe.

I hope I can find more time to write now. I’ve been itching for a place to write about games, media, and my own personal musings.