Going back to the start

I've been sinking into nostalgia lately. It's not just an urge to dust off old games, but to actually feel and experience a certain point in my life. Science says scent is the best indicator for memory, but for me it's gaming. I spent so much time as a kid and teenager with video games that sometimes the only way I can experience my past is to play.

In this past year I've lost a lot of free time and by proxy chances to grow in many different ways. Whether or not it's by choice, I've been consumed by work and I feel it's slowly breaking me down. I've lost a lot of the ambition and heart that I used to have, but mostly my confidence is fading away. I don't know how to explain exactly what I'm experiencing, but I feel like I'm back in high school. Except this time it's not others that are putting me down - it's me. My expectations for myself, for my work, have spun out of control and created insecurities I haven't felt in many, many years.

My solution is to game. Playing games that I used to play when I was younger gives me a sense of release. It brings me back to days when I built a shell around myself, lived in my own little world. By going back to these years, I remember a time when I was slowly building up confidence, not breaking it down. I didn't realize it at the time (nobody does, I think), but by experiencing hardships I was forming character and strength. I was defining my impetus to succeed in this world.

When you put all of your time into one thing, you stop living for everything else. I learned this the hard way. It's taking time to pull myself out - piece by piece, I'm going back to the beginning. I'm re-learning what gave me the drive that lead me to where I am today.