Birthdays, Plans, and Imagined Memories

It's currently 3:07 AM Sunday morning and I'm calling an official end to my birthday festivities. Things kicked off this past Thursday (my actual birthday) with a homemade pizza dinner with Mayra and my parents. We then went out to the downtown bars for a few drinks and wound up staying out way later than I had planned. A few hours later I was up for a day of work that I'm embarrassed to admit was a bit more of a blur than I would have liked. Friday evening I had a special dinner of sopes with Mayra's family and then passed out in Mayra's bed instead of going to the movies like we had planned. Today was the official "party," as people actually came by to celebrate and we did the whole huge dinner/opening presents thing.

Sure, Mayra and I are heading into Queens to grab some dinner with Terry and Micah tomorrow evening (okay, technically later tonight), so I could call that as part of the celebration, but I figure I shouldn't try and get greedy. I've had a real blast the past 72 hours and I think I'm good. I've had a great time with my family, had a blast with my friends, and been able to spend many hours with the woman I love. Couldn't ask for a better birthday.

I've decided that in my twenty-fifth year, I want to increase my creative output to the point where I actually output things I've created more often than "once or twice in a year if I'm lucky." I want to finish games, write stories, and God, do I ever wish I could draw again. I'm going to try and set aside more time for these forms of entertainment where all the fun is up to me, rather than relying so much on games, movies and books for prepared enjoyment. We'll see how this goes.

As I move past this (rather arbitrary) milestone and begin planning out what it means to me, it makes me think about how I dealt with the previous milestone of graduation from college and how I had imagined that would go. No real profound thoughts, just decompressing some things I've had in my head for ages.

I'll be honest by saying that I would occasionally day-dream about the idealized graduation scenario. I'd picture myself a little nervous but ultimately excited, Mayra by my side as I finished up my last remaining classes. I saw myself spending plenty of time with my friends, enjoying the last few weeks of our relatively consequence-free lifestyles. I could hear my family congratulating me as I met with them dressed in my cap and gown with my diploma in my hands. Things only became more romantic (I'm using that word in the classical sense) in my head when Mayra decided she would be studying abroad during my final semester at college, which meant she would be returning to the US just a few weeks before (or as I imagined it - just in time for) the end of my semester. I would go visit her during spring break and once she returned home she would come up and stay with me for the week leading up to graduation. I'd play these thoughts over and over again in my mind. It's a beautiful dream that's still vivid in my head to this very day.

Of course, it didn't happen like that at all. Yes, my family was there, but Bryan had accidentally planned out an overseas vacation at that time and had to miss my graduation weekend. Sure, I had plenty of time with my friends, but real life had claimed us far earlier than planned. And of course, Mayra wasn't there. She got sick less than a month into the first semester, and was just becoming acclimated to life outside of the hospital when graduation rolled around. (She did leave a voicemail on my phone wishing me a happy graduation. Mayra's simple message meant more to me than even I thought it would.)

I'm not angry or upset that this dream didn't become a reality. It's petty to take such matters personally. And besides, my last few weeks of school were filled with amazing memories that I often think back to. But I still think back to the idealized future I had in my head for so long. I always thought of myself as the kind of person who didn't get dragged along by his immature or overly specific dreams, but I had caught myself in the same trap as the girl who plans to have children by this year or the guy who enters school knowing from day one that he'll be a top physician.

And so as I look at where the rest of my twenties will take me (and even further than that), it's not just important to make sure that my roadmap has direction, but to also give it plenty of leeway and chances to move into other areas. If there's one thing I've learned in my twenty-four years that I'll make sure to remember in my twenty-fifth year, it's that your plans are always subject to change. Look to the future, reach for the stars, but don't be afraid to change things up.

(This post partially inspired by David Willis recently re-posting his old mini-series "Roomies: Is a Song Forever?", which first got me thinking about end-of-college scenarios back when I was first in college, and has gotten me reminiscing about it recently.)

Stroll down (cardboard) memory lane

I had to do some serious cleaning in my bedroom last night, and I started finding some ancient creations from my younger days.

Among various notebook drawings from high school, I came across a few cardboard games I made back in the day

(I used to make lots of toys and boardgames using arts and crafts supplies when I was a kid. Yeah, I was one of those weirdo creative types.)

So, I came across a Dragon Ball Z card game and a Metal Gear Solid board game.

During high school, I was way into Dragon Ball. Way into it. My friends and I watch and talk and theorize all the time. I remember finding a website that had information on the show that came from the episodes that hadn't made it to the US yet. It was such a big deal to us. Finding this secret knowledge felt like uncovering some sort of treasure trove.

So, in addition to the other ways I obsessed over it, I used to do a lot of drawing. Not really of the main characters, but more often of my own characters set in that world.

For those of you who don't know me, this is going to be a running theme. Keep it in mind - there will be a test.

Anywho, I began working on this card game while visiting my grandparents one weekend with the family. Don't know why - it was probably a combination of boredom and curiosity (that is to say, I was curious about how the mechanics of the game could work).

The card game revolved around two players trying to take down each other's team of super-powered martial artists by playing characters, powering them up with items and special abilities, and using the titular Dragon Balls to generally muck up their opponent's day.

Dyl and I played once or twice, and from what I can remember, it was kind of fun. Of course, I had a ton of fun drawing little pictures on each card and coming up with the game mechanics. (I made a third deck using my original characters a little later, but I didn't see it last night when I was cleaning. I'm hoping it didn't get thrown out.)

Finding this little project (literally little - for some reason I made each card about 1 inch by two inches) was a nice reminder. I'd thought about these cards before during the years since I created them and I think in the back of my head I always remembered where they were.

The Metal Gear Solid board game though? Wow - I didn't remember this thing existed until I started flipping through the rules and the game pieces.

This was a Christmas present (I think?) for Bryan (I think?) back in 2004. I'm sure about the year, as one of the few memories I have of this game was working on it while at my part-time job answering phones at the church.

Players choose one of four characters (Solid Snake, Meryl, Cyborg Ninja, and Otacon) and move around Shadow Moses island collecting items and battle guards, gun turrets, and bosses. The goal of the game was to accumulate enough weapons, key cards, or kills to take down Metal Gear Rex. In a unusual turn for my homemade games, I actually didn't draw all of the art for this game. Most of it was made up of (what else?) tiny pencil drawings on tiny pieces of paper, however the main character cards and the boss cards all used official MGS character art or screenshots. I'm actually really happy with that decision - it makes the presentation slightly more enticing than the usual "only my family would humor me by playing this" look that the games usually have.

In an even more unusual turn for my games, I actually wrote down the rules for this one. See, here's the thing - I never really considered that I would be finding these games years later and as a result, didn't want to go through the boring process of documenting how to play these games. I ran these games mostly by memory! Sure, it sounds absurd now, but Dyl and I played plenty of homemade tabletop/board games with undefined rules, and we still had fun! (This is also the reason why I still can't figure out how to play the aforementioned DBZ card game.)

But yeah, the MGS board game has a rules sheet! And looking through it, it actually sounds like it could be a fun game! I imagine there are some balancing issues, but it actually has some pretty neat ideas! The weirdest thing is that it reminds me of some of the more complex board games I've had a passing interest in in recent years - except I came up with this game back in high school. Clearly I'm some sort of time-traveling idiot-savant or something.

It's just so satisfying (and thrilling and sometimes moving) finding lost relics of your past. It's even more satisfying when your find is something you created - you get to experience it anew and at the same time relive your memories with this miniature time capsule. I sometimes hate how much of a pack rat I am, but whenever I make one of these discoveries I can't help but feel that it's all worth it.

(Plus - maybe this is a sign I should get back into designing board games, huh?)