Never Writes:
a journal entry
26 March 2026
I don’t really have much to say. I’m still feeling down from yesterday. I’m fine though. Just. I guess the best way to explain it is, well you know when someone asks you how you are doing, there are different types of automatic responses that you give depending on your current state? I am currently at the ‘deep breath then exhale through your mouth’ state of being. But I am okay. I’m standing. (He’s not standing) I’m typing. I’m breathing. I’m oh fuck off I didn’t mean literally standing, I meant like, metaphorically, I’m still standing. I’m not slumped in bed too depressed to move. I’m writing this because I want to write something every day, so I’m doing this.
I started writing a daily journal during a particularly hard time in my life during the Fall of 2024. At first it was just a way to keep me alive. Oh. I see. It was a way for me to help process what I was going through. I found it to be a great help. Prior to this time, I hadn’t really written in almost 20 years. I’d get an idea in my head from time to time, and I’d write that down. Maybe a poem or two over the years. But not much else. I didn’t see a point. There are a lot of things, a lot of actions that may seem natural or common to other people that are not natural or common to me. I speak in this instance about the act of creating something just for me. Just for the joy it brings to make something. I had to learn this on my own. Mostly. I have always been creative. I’ve always liked making or conceptualizing my weird little ideas or stories. But often, very often actually I was discouraged from doing so, unless their was a point. Some type of reward or purpose for what I made.
I started writing poetry when I was 14 or 15 years old. I remember this day in keyboarding class for some reason we were doing some type of assignment involving our career aspirations and I mentioned to our teacher that I wanted to be a writer. His response was to look at me derisively and say “writers don’t make any money.” That’s it. Stupid me hadn’t thought of that. I just liked writing things. I failed that class btw because my life fell apart. When I was in fifth grade I used to write Child’s Play fan fiction until I made the mistake of submitting it as part of a writing exercise and the teacher called my mother to express her concern about my use of violent imagery. It wasn’t overly violent. It was film accurate. But, being the only black student most of the time, I was often held to a different standard than my peers. You may feel you need a citation or explanation of that but you’re not getting one. There were many more events similar to these throughout my life. My mother was rather disinterested in my creative endeavors. I was constantly waved away. I just now had a torrent of hand waving memories flood back to me. I was shooed. Shooed often, actually. And look, these things though seemingly small at the time, condition a person to believe that there is no point to creating something no one will understand.
Through the process of journaling I was able to rediscover that part of myself. I would start by working through whatever emotions I was having about my situation at the time. Just what I was feeling, what I hoped would be the outcome; steps to take. Stuff like that. I would then follow it up by writing about whatever game I was playing, which I found deepened my connection to the game. It didn’t really change the way I viewed said game or the way I thought about gaming in general, but it did help me focus in on specific aspects of a game and game creation. And that allowed me to appreciate things more than I had previously. So it is a good practice all around I would say, journaling. I’m going to watch the Xbox partner showcase and then see if I have enough money for Life is Strange. k bye