Who I was *supposed* to be

Who I was supposed to be

i look kind of like this but less cool

Name: Jaime (they/she)
Age: too old to be fucking around like this (32)
Occupation: was going to have some kind of tech job, but sure, ok, Simply Nothing is fine too, i guess,
Theoretical hobbies: solo gamedev, swimming, hanging out with friends
Actual hobbies: venting online, drawing vent art, writing vent poetry, journaling, chatting online, gaming, watching videos, self-isolating, late-night walks, talking to myself
Life accomplishments: finished college and then gave up. on everything
Some "games" I "like," because apparently that's how I spend my time now: ZeroRanger, Void Stranger, In Stars and Time, OneShot, Outer Wilds, Chicory: A Colorful Tale, Celeste, Omori, Of the Devil, Deltarune, Baba is You, Crypt of the NecroDancer, Cassette Beasts, Slay the Princess

Once upon a time I was going to be a game developer.

It's not some terribly noble or wholesome pursuit, but it's an art form. That's how I see it. That's how I always saw it. Right from the beginning. I played a few games as a child and just instantly thought, this is what I want to do with my life, I want to make these. I have a message I need to share with the world and this is the way I'm going to do it.

I never did know what message I needed to share. Just that it was there. Just that it was in there somewhere. And it itched. And it ached. And it felt wrong. Little bits of it would surface in my creations. I could only ever see the little bits, and in isolation I could never understand them. Only that they were my truth, but not what that truth actually was. Only that they needed to get out—and yet, that something about them was... shameful. Unacceptable. I scrapped and tore apart project after project trying to get rid of the little hints I'd sprinkle for myself throughout them.

Now I know the truth. Now I know what I was trying to express—whether in Clickteam products, in RPG Maker, in GameMaker Studio, in Godot, in Unity, in JavaScript via HTML5 canvas, in C++ via SDL2, in Super Mario Maker, or, well—just on construction paper with markers, if we want to go way back. Now I know what was trying to get out of me and into those media.

Now I know. And I want to say I wish it had stayed buried. I want to say I wish I never learned, and could just go on happily creating things. But I'm through disavowing it. I disavowed it, fictionalized it, pretended it wasn't there, pretended so hard I really did make myself blind to it—for 28 years. I'm done.

I have a whole false life behind me to somehow live up to. I learned the skills, I learned the tools, I went to college and got my bachelor's in the field, and I have nothing to show for it but a fuckton of cool projects never to be finished. Never to be finished, because... I don't have to lie to myself anymore. Now that I refuse to believe any longer that I was somehow making up the things I really went through—neither do I any longer have a need to make more shit up. I can just... speak. I can just tell the truth and be heard.

And... now I don't know what I'm supposed to do with my life anymore. Or really whose life it's even supposed to be. The self I built is irreconcilable with the self who's come back to give her own eulogy.

I'm lost. So very lost. And it kills me inside every single day I continue to draw breath.

I don't want to glorify what happened to me or let it define me. But what else am I supposed to do? What other definition do I have left? Is this what it truly means to have your whole self taken away? What else can I do except keep grieving, keep cursing him, day after day, over and over, telling my story until I'm blue in the face? What else is there to life anymore? What else is there to do in a world where this has already happened to me and it will never un-happen?

I'm just a person. I'm just a person like anyone else and I was just dropped into this situation. I didn't ask for it. I didn't spontaneously adopt it just to like, make myself more interesting or whatever. This is actually happening. I'm actually losing myself. I'm actually losing myself.