2011.03.09 Text 9 notes

  1. A Portrait of the Pokémon Trainer at 18

    About a week or so ago, a group of friends and I made a trip to the mall in Aurora, maybe about an hour drive away from Boulder. I crashed at one of these friends’ house the night before to make the trip a bit easier, since we were awake well into the morning, and we planned to get there as soon as we could.

    For what reason? A tour for the newest installments in the Pokémon game series.

    I’m glad I know most of my followers in a sense that they will not have any harsh judgements about this. I know many of you have spirit Pokémon (ahem, Cubone and Gengar forever). If you’re not one of those types of followers, bear with me, I have something to say here.

    I grew up as the biggest dork for Pokémon. I played the games and had so much fun doing it. The first two generations were definitely “my thing.” As I type this post, I have a Bulbasaur pencil sharpener in my desk. However, after the second generation of games and such, I had a falling out with Pokémon. I thought, “There’s too many now! Did they run out of ideas, what the hell is this weird thing?” Plus, becoming a teenager didn’t really encourage further interest. I was busy trying to look cool, listening to music that no one knew about.

    So why did I find myself at a mall, surrounded by fellow nerds, trying to get a card stamped for free swag, all of it revolving around good ‘ol Pocket Monsters? There’s a few ideas I’ve come up with.

    First of all, it’s because of my surroundings. These aforementioned friends of mine had their copies reserved, which they finally obtained a few days ago. They were excited about it, and this whole “Tour” thing sounded like a pretty fun way to spend a good bit of a Saturday with some friends.

    Also, because of my friends back in Colorado Springs. I got myself and started playing a copy of Heart Gold back during my winter break, and they had been doing the same (they’re working on the new ones now).

    Plus, there’s one thing that I ended up pondering when I decided I was going to write about this. My precious little life has changed more in the last few months more than it ever has before. My first of year of college has really proven to be challenging, frustrating, and sometimes just unfair. I’m away from some really important people, and that, for lack of a better way to say it while still getting the point across, sucks.

    But I still have all of them, just like I still have Pokémon games to remind me how it felt when I first beat Brock way back when. I play through Heart Gold with all my old favorites, and I text Joe and Rebecca all damn day.

    I’ve made many new friends out here, and maybe at some point I’ll grab a copy of one of the new games, because I want to see what the hell Nintendo thought up this time around. I welcome the changes, for once.

    I may have just used the transitions in the Pokémon series as something of a metaphor for my life, but I don’t know what else I could do to say that my courage will pull me though whatever may come.

    To my old friends, I want to be the very best for all of you.

    To the new, you teach me, and I’ll teach you.

    So anyway, I’m finishing up this post to go get the medicine for the Ampharos in the light house. Smell ya later!